Saint John — Postsecondary enrolment is down across the country, standardized test results are shocking, and most kids just don’t give a shit about their future. But rather than ride the wave of educational backsliding, the University of New Brunswick, Saint John Campus is taking a bold step forward to buck these trends.
UNBSJ plans to offer unique courses during the winter semester that will make college more enticing and more relevant to the average disinterested youth.
“The idea came to me when I was sitting on the toilet playing Angry Birds,” said university vice-president of Educational Development Carl Berwick. “Why not offer courses that combine popular video games with hardcore learning? Then I came up with ‘Angry Birds and Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness,’ which will be offered by the Sociology and Philosophy departments.”
That revelation was just the beginning, Berwick stated. He spent an afternoon driving past strip malls and fast food outlets, gathering ideas for new courses and writing a draft curriculum on the back of the Tim Hortons bag. “To say that kids these days just don’t get it is an understatement. They are a herd of vacuous, disingenuous, horny little bastards. And we have just the courses for that.”
The campus will offer undergraduate and postgraduate courses in “Texting and Messianic Subtext in Churchill’s Early Writings,” “Hairstyling and the French Revolution,” “Tattooing, Piercing, and the Sociology of Fame” and “Advanced Slouching.”
Students are encouraged to consult their academic advisors to determine whether these courses may be a good fit.