Just How Did You manage To Get Into College?

[eltf177]

Hi, long time lurker, fairly new member, first post.

I really liked Gravekeeper's story on Helicopter Parental Units and it reminded me of my college days (can't believe this was 25 years ago). Both I and my brother worked for the college part-time so this does fall under Sucky Customers.

Even back then there were students who were beyond belief. I can understand you might have trouble working a computer, but we had students who couldn't even do the most basic of tasks for themselves. It seemed that a lot of them came to college to get away from mom and dad, get drunk and have sex (not necessarily in that order).

My brother and I had chores to do around the house so we could do things like laundry already. Our mom taught us how to iron (not that we ever did) and sew a button back on (again, never did but could do an emergency repair if we had to). And we were smart enough to know that college professors aren't going to hold your hand, you need to do things for yourself and keep up with your classwork.

My favorites include:

A girl who poured half a bottle of laundry detergent in the washer for one load of clothes (needless to say that machine shorted out when the works siezed up).

One young man who "didn't know how to change sheets." Apparently his mom made his bed the first day and he just left them on. They had gotten pretty disgusting by Halloween!

The guys who decided to warm up some pizza in the dorm oven. Problem is they used the broiler instead of bake and decided to have some beer while waiting and just left it. The smoke was so bad it set off the detectors and the fire department showed up!

The obviously underage bunch of freshmen who tried to bring an entire handtruck full of beer and hard liquor into the dorm through the lobby, this while the campus cops were in the lobby to check out the out-of-control party in their room (their cars were parked right out front; kinda hard to miss, dudes).


Many students couldn't balance a checkbook. And quite a few seemed incapable of actually getting themselves out of bed to get to class (I acutally had people ask that I wake them up! Needless to say that didn't happen!).

I would really like to hear from readers who've been to college recently as the Helicopter Parental Unit really came into vogue in the last few years. Please tell us about your most clueless dorm mates! Bonus points if the HPU comes to the rescue!

[Foxglove8778]

just as a personal observation - I've noticed that people who pay for their education themselves tend to take it much more seriously. I apologize if this is obvious, but in all honesty I have a lot more respect for students at the local community college that are working two jobs to pay for classes as they go than I do for the ones that have it handed to them and squander it.

I lived in a college town. It was a law school. Do you have any idea how many students would ask me how to use the machines at the laundromat every time I was there to do my own laundry??

[Greenday]

I thought I'd be in some trouble, living on my own, when I got to college, but then when I saw everyone else, I knew I would be fine. I mean, I even know what gets warm water and what gets cold. Half the kids don't even know how to do ANY laundry. It pisses me off to no end when someone opens up a drier in use and doesn't hit the start button again. Many times, have I gone back downstairs and found my clothes wet.

Honestly, I wonder how the majority of kids at my school made it into college, some of the stupid crap they do. I mean, who the hell throws a dresser out their window, especially if they are on the 8th floor of the damn building? I hope they weren't surprised when they were kicked out of my college.

I'm also a forensic chem major. You'd have no idea how many people started out as chem majors because "it sounded cool". So does that F on your transcripts because you weren't planning on taking any of it seriously.

[Diablo]

I'm a 26 year old freshman in a dorm. We just got out of our first semester. I got a phone call from my one roommate's mom because of his shitty grades. She felt I should have been a better influence on him and gotten him better grades. Like its my fault the kid is a screwed up mess. I pointed out my grades and informed her that me and my other roommates would be more than willing to help him move out. The kid is a walking "Hot Topic" ad with ADHD.

[BookstoreEscapee]

Hey Greenday, ever found your wet clothes on top of the dryer while someone else used up your drying time to dry their clothes? Yeah.

And how the hell does anyone not know how to balance a checkbook? It's addition and subtraction for dog's sake! Geez, get a damn calculator.
I could have balanced your checkbook in 2nd grade, and I am the first to admit that math is not my forte! I use a calculator, but if my batteries died or something, I could still do it with some scratch paper and a pen.

[bainsidhe]

I once had another student ask if I could type his paper for him. He would dictate and I would type. Because he didn't know how to work the computer. At 2am. Um, no. I told him I had to type my own paper and couldn't help him.

[napoleana]

One young man who "didn't know how to change sheets." Apparently his mom made his bed the first day and he just left them on. They had gotten pretty disgusting by Halloween!

There's been a couple times where I'd start to take a nap on one guy friend's bed, and I'd sit up suddenly and tell him, "Dude, seriously! Change your sheets now!" In all fairness though, he can go months without breathing well enough to smell it. When his regular acute sense of smell kicks back in, he'll go wash them without being told.

The guys who decided to warm up some pizza in the dorm oven. Problem is they used the broiler instead of bake and decided to have some beer while waiting and just left it. The smoke was so bad it set off the detectors and the fire department showed up!

Same dude as earlier calls me every month or so to ask at what temp he's supposed to bake the one recipe I've successfully taught him. (He hasn't tried spaghetti since I burnt my stomach and thigh trying to teach him.) Last time he called:

"Napo, you know that pineapple stuff you showed me how to make?"

"Yuh-huh?"

"Do I put it on bake or broil?"

"Wha...? Dear God! Bake! Bake!"

[BookstoreEscapee]

I once had another student ask if I could type his paper for him. He would dictate and I would type. Because he didn't know how to work the computer. At 2am. Um, no. I told him I had to type my own paper and couldn't help him.

I once had my roommate dictate my paper to me while I typed it on her computer. But there were extenuating circumstances: My computer up and died while I was writing said paper, with just the conclusion left to write. Of course, I had not printed it out yet. I had to get an extension from my prof., rewrite the paper (on a legal pad this time!) from memory, and then had her read it to me so I could type it up that much faster. But she didn't have anything else to do at the moment (and I was on her computer) so she didn't mind. I actually think it turned out better the second time around...

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

My first year away at college, I shared an on-campus apartment with 3 roommates. One of them, "Victor" came from Vancouver. He came from a very wealthy family and had his own apartment in Vancouver, complete with a maid. For some reason, he was able to move into the apartment a week or so early and his uncle stayed with him that first week until the rest of us moved in. When uncle left, he gave my parents his phone number in Canada and asked us to call him if there were "any problems"

Talk about your omens. Here are some of the problems I had with Victor:

• He wouldn't help with any of the cleaning
• He ate nothing but takeout and Banquet chicken which he could put on a cookie sheet and throw in the oven. And when he was finished eating he'd leave his chicken bones sitting out to stick to the plates and stink.
• He smoked in the apartment even though that was prohibited. The top of his desk and his dresser more or less became caked in cigarette ashes bonded to the surface by spilled soda or chicken grease.
• He'd throw loud all-night parties while I was trying to sleep. When earplugs no longer helped to block out the noise I just slept at friends' places. Then he'd sleep all day and never go to any classes. The professors and advisers were always calling the apartment looking for him.
• He and his friends managed to damage the window and screen in his bedroom by pelting it with snowballs.
• I found out he was using my cell phone to call casinos to place bets on sporting events, and to call friends back in Vancouver. I got stuck with the bill. From then on I had to lock up my cell phone in my safe when it wasn't on my person.
• He might also have been selling pot out of the apartment. If he was the university never found out about it.

I tried to get my roommates to help nudge Victor into helping out a bit with the household chores and to tell him to cut out the nightly parties, but they weren't of any help. One kinda liked the party atmosphere that was going on and thought it wouldn't do any good because "He's basically a little kid," and the other was always gone. At the end of the first semester one of the roommates moved out and Victor managed to get his friend moved into the apartment, so the parties and the uncleanliness got worse.

So like the first roommate, I went the route of staying away from the apartment as much as I could and going home on weekends a lot. Just so I wouldn't have to deal with him.

[Sableonblonde]

I had no need to go to college, but when I was 18-20 I did live and work somewhere that had dorms and was exactly like college as far as the living situation went. My problem wasn't that I didn't know how to do laundry, but that I was just too lazy to. There were like two washers and dryers on each floor, and it was such a pain to drag your clothes down there and discover both machines were in use. One time (and in hindsight I have NO idea what I was thinking)I filled up my bathtub and just dumped all of my dirty clothes in there. I realized fairly quickly what a dumb idea that was, and that I had nowhere to put all of my soaking wet clothes. There were times also when I would just go out and buy new clothes whenever all of mine were dirty

[cinema guy]

Don't do what a friend of mine did with his wet underwear at college and dry it in the microwave - he melted the elastic in his underpants!

[retaildrone]

Many of the girls in my dorm had no clue how to do laundry. I can't complain, though, because I charged to do it for them. LMAO

[Trayol]

I personally hate when people forget to pick up their laundry when the washer or dryer is done. There have been times when I went down and seen stopped washers and waited thirty minutes before getting permission from the front desk to move the clothing out the way. But I was nice enough to put it in a dryer for them.

[Snowbird]

While a lot of these situations I would chalk up to being lazy, self centered and apathetic responses from the roommates, there are also the examples of children raised by parents who won't let them think for themselves. "You're too young to do this, you're not old enough to do that, you won't do it the way that I like it done, so here, I'll do it instead."

Sure, the stuff gets done at home, but for the newly booted to the behind fledgling trying out their wings, it can get hairy. Home Ec in high school only covers so much. I wonder if colleges have ever offered a course in house keeping, or dorm keeping as it were. Maybe they should.

[boringscreenname]

I think I had the most naive roommate ever in college. Ok to start out with she was an only child and grew up extremely sheltered. She told me that her mom refused to let her use the stove and oven, and she wasn't allowed to use anything sharper than a butter knife.

She also came to college with one towel, and maybe 3-5 outfits. She did laundry maybe once a month and was always trying to borrow money or laundry detergent from me. She also showered once a week, usually less than that. I asked her why she didn't shower daily like most people, and she responded that without her glasses on she couldn't see very well, and when she showered with her glasses on they fogged over. At this point I was shaking my head in disbelief, you don't need to see that well to do a good job of washing your body, I mean you've only had the same one your entire life. I don't think she knew how to wash her hair properly or didn't wash it at all, because it was still greasy and stringy as ever after her showers.

Somehow she was able to get an easy work study job, but her mom actually took the checks, and put them in an account, that she managed. She actually sent my roommate an allowance of $20 per month, and wouldn't let her access the rest of her money.

The roommate also lacked common sense. I went home one weekend and bought a 24 pack of Pepsi. Roommate also brought back some Pepsi, but decided to return it to the grocery store so she could have money to go see a movie, and says she doesn't like Pepsi that well anyway. So one day I catch her in my fridge trying to take one of my Pepsis. I put an end to that, and told her if she wanted pop she shouldn't have returned hers just so she could take mine

Oh and when she went to go see the movie she took the city bus to the theater which is all good. But when the movie let out the buses had stopped running so she actually tried to walk back to the college (about 10 miles), proceeded to get lost, never once called me, and then got in some middle aged guy's car who brought her back to the campus.

She was also pretty clueless about dating, and admitted she'd never been on a date, didn't know how to kiss a guy, and well let's say she asked me some damn awkward questions about genitalia and anatomy. I told her I wasn't being paid to teach her sex ed, and if she didn't know what something was to look it up in the dictionary or something, because I was not having a birds and bees talk with my college freaking roommate.

Eventually she wound up flunking out of college and moving back home with her parents. The funniest part is she wanted to be a daycare or elementary school. Fortunately that dream will probably never come true and our youth are safe.