I really can't get enough of this kind of thing

[james_davis_nicoll]

Shorter Doonesbury: wow, the younger generation sucks!

If only they had the drive of a Zonker or the academic brilliance of a BD.

Comments

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

But all that is after he dropped out of university (to avoid writing a term paper). I like the way BD has developed over the decades but he was a terrible student.

[jeffreyab.livejournal.com]

I think in BD and Zonker's case you have to argue did Walden give them the skills that they needed to survive and thrive in the world after college and in this I would say yes unlike the poor recent grad.

In their day the emphasis was still on class work not socializing even if they did more of the latter. Also the society they graduated into relied less on academic credentials for personal success.

I think Trudeau's argument is that college has explicitly become an extension of the baby sitting service that high school has become, that in BD's and Zonker's day there was an attempt to make the students adhere to an academic standard that BD ultimately failed only to face and survive greater challenges in Viet Nam and that Zonker did conquer after nine years.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Zonker's survival skills since uni mainly involve using his nine (!) years of undergrad university to convince his university pals to hire him as a nanny.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

And in BD's case I'd be inclined to credit the military.

[bethzebra.livejournal.com]

I've heard a lot of my mother's and father's college stories (they both graduated in the early '60s) and neither sets of tales is overly burdened by studying. It could all be in the way they tell it, of course, and they did both go on to be quite successful, but "emphasis on class work not socializing" is not at all the way their college experience comes across.

[robertprior.livejournal.com]

When I get together with university classmates it's not the classes we talk about, even though classes and studying occupied more time than socializing. It's just the crazy social stuff is more interesting.