Commentator

Alright, I've Had Enough

Four years, many thousands of dollars, and untold billions of brain cells later, Andy Combs rides off into the sunset, leaving the place as he found it: mediocre.

If you're looking for brilliant and insightful writing, please do not read any further. However, if a trite ramble is what tickles your fancy, then continue on.

June 10, 2000 marks the day I get paroled from the University of Oregon. I have done my time and the board is letting me out early for good behavior. Now it is decision time.

When I graduated from high school it was a foregone conclusion that I would be attending the University of Oregon. You see, I was too lazy to fill out any college applications. My mom, a UO alum, filled out the UO application on my behalf and I signed my name to it. That fateful signature landed me in Eugene four years ago, and I've been here ever since.

My mom has put her foot down now and demanded that I start filling out my own applications for grad schools, jobs, the Peace Corps, etc. This has severely hampered my post-bac prospects. Luckily, I coerced my girlfriend into filling out a couple of applications, and so far the UO Law School and the Subway at Valley River Center are the only places that have shown any interest in me for next year.

Well, I don't know how I feel about being a lawyer or a Sandwich Artist. I've never been very "artsy," and the legal profession has too many egotistical, assholes in it to support one more like me. So here I sit, befuddled.

I think I just realized what the problem is: I lack the necessary skills to get a good job. I made the decision when I entered college to major in political science and to minor in business and economics. I am now realizing that these decisions have crippled my chance for success. I have been tested on my ability to think about what others think about things. Who is going to pay me now to think about what others think? I'm not smart enough to work for a Washington think tank. They want people from Harvard, Columbia, and Stanford working for them, not because they're any smarter, but for some reason people listen a little closer to a fancy school graduate than to a UO grad. Go figure.

I took a class from Professor Jerry Medler in the Fall of 1997 regarding political power. The most profound statement he made was one day during lecture he stated, "You people are not elite students, I am not an elite professor, and this is not an elite university." This just didn't slip out of Jerry's mouth either. I could tell that he had thought about this, and I also knew that he was damn right. On the next quiz Professor Medler asked a True/False question asking us if we were elite students at an elite university being taught by an elite professor. The correct answer was "false."

I've thought about that statement a lot over the past three years. We really aren't elite here. We're a second-rate school. Even our athletic programs that get everyone all excited about are second-rate. When was the last time an Oregon sports team did well in the post-season? Whenever it was, it was prior to my enrollment here.

I could have chosen to attend Oregon State and possibly could have learned how to do something practical like engineering, animal husbandry, or forestry. But I'd probably still be lost and confused and already fed up with learning about trees and trying to get a goat to screw a cow in order to get some new hybrid milk chain.

The UO is not a bad school, but it is not too good either. It's the home to mediocrity. To get anything from this place you cannot rely solely on your academic record, because that will not get you respect from grad schools or employers not directly related to the UO. Extracurricular activities are the key to having success here. If it was not for the things I did out of the classroom, I would have absolutely no chance of going anywhere after graduation.

The main problem is that this school places the importance of its athletic programs far over anything else including academics, music, or the arts. Most people are content to know that as long as the Oregon sports teams are doing well than it doesn't matter how we stand anywhere else. The administration hopes that a good football team will attract incoming students, but this strategy leaves our core learning areas ignored.

This logic angers me greatly, because it is the same thing I saw in my small town high school. We had no AP classes and the lowest SAT scores of any high school in southern Oregon, but it was all okay because our cross country, basketball, and wrestling programs were in good shape. If a kid got a scholastic scholarship to attend a college he or she was given a minimal amount of praise. But if some soon-to-be washed-up athlete received some type of tuition waive at a community college it was like he or she had just got drafted into the pros.

To get a full picture of just how entrenched our little system of rewarding athletes is here, look no further than to the Alumni Association. Towards the end of May they held a senior send-off with free pizza from the Residence Halls. A common passerby would probably think how great it was for the Alumni Association to hold such an event, but let's take a little closer look.

The event's main purpose was not for the seniors but rather a shameless promotion for the Alumni Association. They wanted to let us seniors know how important it is to give as an alum of this great school and gave us free pizza and a CD holders to let us know that they cared about the common student. Well, if you really think that the Alumni Association gives one thought towards the average UO student, then you are sadly mistaken. The majority of the money collected from past graduates through the Alumni Association goes directly to athletes. Until the UO changes its policies concerning athletics, the university will continue to have problems attracting top notch students and faculty.

Enough of that; I don't want to sit here and bitch about athletics. This is my last piece and just want to say all in all, I've had a fun time here at the UO. Also, you younger folks think that it may seem like a long time away, but graduation will come for you too. Well, partner, I'm saddlin' up and heading off into the sunset. It has been a pleasure.

Andy Combs, a senior double majoring in sadism and masochism, is Publisher for the Oregon Commentator