The Wracks has a counselor. She agrees to give him advice on what classes to take in his academic career at the big U. She is of average height with short cut brown hair, about middle-aged and dresses in a casual blouse with pants. The Wracks does not notice if she is married. She sits in a big office with an official oak desk and portraits of her alma mater here at the university. Her grey Anglo-Saxon eyes look at him intently without displaying emotion.
What classes should I take in my Biology major at the university asks the Wracks? I would like to attend graduate school and eventually become a doctor of Medicine.
You should take challenging classes and get at least a B average in them says the counselor. Graduate schools tend to favor high graduate exam scores over grade point averages because they are not inflated by which university you attend.
I would like to attend an Immunology Class offered by the graduate school chimes in Wracks. It sounds interesting. Do you think it is too much for me?
No I don’t say the counselor. You have until after the first midterm to drop the course. You will probably enjoy it.
Thank you very much for your advice says the Wracks. I think I have fall semester planned. Have a good day.
Fall quarter begins early in summer for students using the quarter system. Instead of two semesters there are three quarters a year and a summer session. Each quarter is ten weeks long. Immunology class hosts in the main lecture hall in the chemistry building because that is what immunology is: cellular chemistry. The science initially came into being from the discoveries of Sir Harvey Burnett and Professor Roit who discovered immunoglobulins and elucidated their properties. The big lecture hall fills with at least one hundred people, most of whom the Wracks have never seen before. There are graduate students who sit in the front row, medical students in their white uniforms, and graduate students from other universities who drive here because this is the only place where the new science is being hosted and offered. The professor is a researcher who wears a white lab coat and a tie and goes by the name Clark. The Class is long and full of the chemistry of proteins that are called antibodies. Antibodies have chemical properties just like salt; protein or sugar in a biochemical system and Medicine is studying them now avidly.
It is now wintertime in California and the autumn winds have gone away and the professor lectures and the class goes on and finals are very soon. Midterms have gone smoothly and the Wracks has an A average going into the final. However the final is one-third of the grade and anything less than a B plus knocks your grade from A to B. Dr. Clark gives Wracks the option of taking an essay exam or a multiple choice exam. The Wracks options for the essay exam but chickens out when he sees the questions and asks to change to the multiple choice examination, and is given the change. The exam fills with graphs and data spreadsheets for the Wracks to analyze and the Wracks is befuddled and make wild guesses. It happens that the Wracks is a good guesser and scores one point below a B plus and Dr. Clark is feeling charitable today and gives him an A in the course.
Would you like to do research with mice asks Dr. Clark. In the winter and spring quarters we have openings for students in the School of Biology to do murine research in Immunology under the auspices of the Graduate school. The grants are fully funded and all you have to do is complete the work to get an A. It’s a lot of work and your other classes will suffer. Are You Up to it?
It sounds good to me says the Wracks. My counselor told me to take challenging courses.
It will be challenging and I will inform the professors that you will enroll. Good luck.
The Wracks sit in the refreshment venue newly built at the science quad of the big U. All in white concrete, the picnic tables sit in an amphitheater in front of a grill and fry shack that serves delicious hamburgers, hotdogs, and French fries. The Wracks doesn’t have any money to buy the delicious food and sit there and smell the delicious odors. His mother who works at the big U told him to take a sack lunch because they built the science quad over a radioactive waste dump. In the old days before government regulations, nuclear reactors and researchers dug deep holes to bury their radioactive isotopes and waste, and here and up in Northern California are unmarked graves of radioactive waste. The Wracks savors his cheese and crackers packet and two slices of Wonder bread together with a V8 juice bought from the vending machine kiosk at Bummer Hall. The savory odor of French fries boiling in grease suffuses the air and the Wracks reads some of his notes bought from an official note taker who sells her wares at the Student Union. Soon it will be here at the Student Union where the Wracks eats his daily two dollar bowl of soup meal at the Student cafeteria with all the coffee you can drink for a quarter. Then it is up to the research university to study for three hours and then take a vacant lonely bus ride home to prepare for another day. For a student monthly pass, the bus ride home is only one quarter.
This was in the good old days when the government wanted all their new generation to succeed and subsidized intrepid learners with low tuition stipends and low-cost meals. Anyone who wanted to work hard and better themselves could be a technician or professional and shoot for the stars. Life has changed and everything is expensive and the middle class slowly phases out. These are the good old days when the nation was great and its citizens were the bell ringers and shining examples in the known world. Now it is all about money.