NEW YORK, N.Y. (SatireWire.com) — Sensitive to claims they no longer prepare students for the real world, universities across the country today unveiled a new type of degree – the Bachelor of Whatever (B.W.), where students select their own courses, track their own progress, test and grade themselves, graduate Magna Cum Laude, and whatever it doesn’t matter there aren’t any jobs.
“As educators, we must prepare people for life after college,” said New York University Dean Arnistan Bright. “Right now, about half of new college graduates are either unemployed or underemployed, so students with a B.W. will have a leg-up on the ladder to success, which they are taught has only one rung and tops out at cashier.”
“It’s really about expectations and ‘Can I find work in my chosen field?’” said University of Colorado admissions officer Kylie Scott. “People with a Bachelor of Science expect to take that job. People with a Bachelor of Arts hope to take that job. People with a Bachelor of Whatever will gladly take your order.”
The traditional B.A. and B.S. will still exist, but several of their majors will now be included under the B.W., including art history, philosophy, communications, anthropology, literature, graphic design, and hospitality management. The B.W. degree will also take at least five years, as students will spend three semesters doing internships at fast food restaurants, telemarketing firms, and Goldman Sacks – a grocery bagging trainee program.
The B.W., however, is not the only change on the horizon in higher education. With college costs well above $200,000 for a four-year degree, the University of California system says it will introduce a half-price “budget” degree, a slimmed-down version of college consisting of drinking, awkward sex, two math classes and intramural Frisbee – or roughly the equivalent of four years at the University of Miami.
Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, meanwhile, will offer a B.D., or Bachelor of Debt, including a class in which students lay on the floor under a 500-pound weight just to see what the rest of their lives will be like. Boston University will, appropriately, offer a B.U., or Bachelor of Underemployment, which includes a 10-year, non-paying, post-graduate internship, and course offerings such as, “From Totem Pole to Stripper Pole – Finally making money with your anthropology degree.”
And while other schools trial alternative degrees such as Bachelor of Drive-Thru Windowing, (B.D.T.W.), Bachelor of Financial Dependency (B.F.D.), and Bachelor of Utter Hopelessness (B.U.H.), Northwestern University this month will award its first B.L.Y.P.B.s (Bachelor of Living in Your Parent’s Basement).
Unlike a degree in architecture or theater arts, the BLYPB is useful, offering real-world courses for graduates destined to live underground at home.
“A lot of my peers spent a quarter-million dollars and don’t know why,” said Shannon Cabot, who will earn a BLYPB at Northwestern. “But I know what I got for my money. I learned how to consolidate my personal belongings into one corner, how to use bleach in the fight against mold, how to identify various kinds of spiders, how to turn my old dorm refrigerator into a sump pump, and how to tell my stoned friends to watch their heads at the top of the stairs.”
Cabot, who does not have a job lined up so far, said she plans to spend the next several years going on job interviews, recognizing edible fungi, and attempting to sell her screenplay The Parent Tap, a movie about a pair of 20-something twins separated at birth who try to reunite their divorced parents so they can tap them up for the money they’ll save as a married couple filing jointly.
Copyright © 2012, SatireWire.com
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