As enrollment begins, a TU student and several faculty members have weighed in on the process that often results in students inadvertently running a marathon.
Panting furiously and covered in sweat stains, local TU student Jeremy Lewis eagerly stated that he hopefully only has another five or so miles to go before finishing his enrollment.
“As long as I maintain this pace, I should be able to make the trek to Keplinger in the next half hour, followed by a brief meeting at Oliphant shortly after, and then I’ll only have a few more stops to go” Lewis said of the 26.2-mile light jog he had begun along with a few dozen other freshman that morning when they began the exodus from Fisher South.
“You never really notice how out of shape you are in college until you start the biannual journey TU calls enrollment,” Lewis said. “I’m just very thankful for all of the available resources and instructions that help me sign up for all of my classes in less than eight hours and only a few repeat trips to academic buildings on the opposite sides of campus of course”.
At the sound of the bell at noon, Lewis was seen rounding ACAC with a smile on his face as he was on his final lap, knowing that he could soon unwind in his back-to-back organic chemistry and physics labs he had that night.
While this young student’s endeavor may be coming to an end, faculty members take some pleasure in remembering that tomorrow more unprepared students will face a similar predicament as they try and squeeze 18 credit hours into a bearable weekly routine. “It’s just so nice to see these bright minds complete such an incredible athletic effort” said longtime TU professor Bob Rogers, “It just really takes me back to my time here at TU when I would be forced to travel miles in order to have a chance at taking a few classes that sounded vaguely interesting to me”.
Those working admissions too seem to be enjoying the sight of hundreds of students struggling to get paperwork submitted before deadlines.
“I really do believe that student programming like this builds character and mental toughness for our student body, I mean under what other circumstances are they going to be physically pushed this hard these days, certainly not through intramurals or anything of that matter” said admissions counselor Susan Johnston. “Not to mention student calf muscles are looking pretty toned this time of year, so I definitely have no room to complain there”.
Johnston went to on to say that “the employee break room had been feeling pretty dull recently” as a result of their 21-inch televisions being taken in for repairs, “so it’s really important to some of my coworkers and I that we have a reliable source of entertainment for when the day just gets a little bit too stressful. Watching the struggles of the TU students provides us with just that, a free glimpse at a truly breath-taking unintentional athletic feat”.
