Being the best Brock student possible today is difficult, but it’s not impossible if you know what you’re doing.
A few disclaimers are in order before I reveal the secret formula of how to be the best Brock student possible.
First of all, if you are studying in the humanities or social sciences, that’s okay! But this guide is not meant for you. From a purely market standpoint, you’re next to useless (unless you’re in economics, then stay tuned). I would recommend switching to accounting, business or computer science (more on this later).
Second, if you’re an international student, it doesn’t matter if you are a humanities student, an archeology student or a business student — you’re already several steps ahead to being a good Brock student.
See what’s important is that as an international student, you’re a student who can be charged more than domestic students because in 1996 Canadian universities were given discretion over international fee structures, meaning they were marketized.
Now, while some may be thinking: Is the massive increase in international students over the last several decades something that the University is thinking through in terms of the broader sphere of societal concerns it creates like issues around affordable housing, predatory loans and debt struggles? Or are they only viewed as another lucrative customer base in a corporate structure that is essentially becoming a diploma mill?
These questions are starting to reek of racism; do you not like the diversity that international students bring to our campus?! Let’s put these questions aside so we don’t violate safe space needs.
There! Did you catch that? I just demonstrated another way to be a good Brock student.
You see, I felt a sense of entitlement against being exposed to ideas that are tough and implicate ethnicity and class, so I simply shut down the conversation. That is a good Brock student instinct.
To be a good Brock student, it’s important to talk a lot about the inclusion of marginal identities and wear the face of left radicalism in a way that is easily reified into a liberal market logic of inclusion in the top echelons of society (professionals, corporate executive positions, top government roles) while not critiquing the very material interests and exploitative practices perpetuated through these powerful posts (because, remember, you’re probably aiming for them when you enter the job market as well!)
Now, social commentators point to this very lack of wanting to deal with issues of class position and its correlative hyper fixation on identity as a reflection of the way in which higher education since the 1980s has become a bastion for middle- and upper-class interests. Here’s cultural critic Melinda Cooper explaining this effect:
“Increasingly in this decade, the parents of college students began to bring private tort suits against colleges for failing to fulfill their duty to protect students from foreseeable dangers such as hazing incidents or on- campus rape. Drawing on the language of private liability, the plaintiffs demanded that colleges take reasonable precautionary steps to prevent incidents occurring, create safe spaces for the students who had paid for them, and give adequate warnings against the possible dangers that might confront students on campus. These lawsuits positioned parents as private investors in the future capital of their children, and colleges as standing in a trustee relationship to this investment — liable for damages if their charges were in any way harmed… The almost exclusive legitimation of emotional trauma as a currency of minority politics tends to foster a culture of internecine litigiousness on the left, where the voices of those who challenge consensus are readily perceived as traumatizing or abusive and promptly excommunicated. In the meantime, the role played by economic inequality in the distribution of gendered and racial violence is actively obscured. After all, the politics of outrage references a logic of litigation that cannot be activated in practice without considerable personal wealth.”
Woah, that was a long passage. What a slog. I share this passage because that’s what humanities students read, and gee whiz, isn’t it boring? What in that passage teaches you how to be helpful to a boss so you can secure a cushy corporate-sector job?
Which brings me to my next point in being a good Brock student: Be. A. Goodman. School. Of. Business. Student. (Unless you’re an international student, then as I said earlier: study what you want, just pay up at the end f*cker).
You see, the MBA course at the Business school is the most popular one at Brock because it has the clearest return on investment. This is because the university today is dominated by a neoliberal logic of monetary and efficiency testing with a massive corporate-aping bureaucracy that drives up tuition and only hires people like themselves just like most other sectors in society today.
And this is excellent because as the corporate bureaucracy expanding drives up tuition, the predatory student loan market becomes more lucrative as they collect higher interest payments.
The MBA program, through co-ops and employer connection programs, perfectly prepares you for a life of being a steward for the capital class, effectively putting you in a stupor inspired by the banality of corporate life.
But you want to make money right?!
Wanting money and a secure place in capitalist culture is good Brock student practice, so look into the Goodman School’s programs (unless you’re an international student, then we don’t care, just please enroll).
Finally, if business just isn’t your thing, no worries. Consider studying computer science as that’s also a degree with a high ROI despite the fact that it’s becoming a highly saturated degree, meaning the laws of supply and demand will likely make it so that it’s not a guaranteed path to a six-figure salary in the future.
At the end of the day, there are many ways to be a good Brock student. For example, being a business or accounting student as well as being an international student.
This article is part of a special edition of The Brock Press for April Fools and is completely satirical. None of the content contained within this article is meant to be representative of reality.
