troll target: carleton university senior management
troll method: mass email
a proposal for a new scholarship program designed to help floaters continue to float
august 1, 2010
written by jessica murray
| "lots of people seem to think i'm lazy. |
|
| i don't mind; i think they're crazy!" |
|
|
- john lennon, 1966 |
the floater. we're an odd bunch, us. absurdly intelligent, idealistic, over-read, highly capable and yet, through most of our lives, uninterested in performing well in school or in succeeding in the world of business. most of us end up floating because, at some point, we walked down the wrong path and decided that we enjoyed being lost...
while we will likely never cure cancer, become prime minister, construct a perpetual motion machine, eliminate nationalism or even succeed in holding a 9-5 office job for more than a few weeks without getting fired, we have plenty to offer in the areas of art, music, literature, abstract mathematics and philosophy. yet, we are floaters; we could not, by definition of a floater, have realized this at the age of 19. it must be something that becomes clear somewhere midway through adulthood.....
our scholarship program currently has two primary purposes. the first is to act as a means of identification; the kids with the scholarships are the best kids. this is obvious and requires no further explanation. the second purpose is to help smart yet disadvantaged kids out of poverty by giving them a serious opportunity to jump socio-economic classes. this is also obvious...
....should we consider a third purpose, namely one based on the idea of an expansion of the welfare state to help certain kinds of older students define incentives to get their lives moving? should we set up a limited scholarship program designed specifically to help certain kinds of aimless adults - drifters, floaters - stay within the scholastic system essentially indefinitely under the argument that going to school is essentially the only thing that these individuals are capable of doing at a level of excellence and that they still nonetheless need some incentives to help get them focused?
while i have outlined a set of general principles here, it's probably best that i jump right into the proposal.
the jessica murray aimless drifter scholarship
qualifications
- the student must be between the ages of 29 and 34.
- the student must have completed at least one degree but no more than three degrees.
- the student must not have completed more than two degrees in the same subject.
- the student must not have completed a phd.
- the student must have completed at least 30 university credits, or 60 university courses, in total.
- of those 30 credits, at least 5 must be in the requirements of some b. mathematics, 5 in the requirements of some b. science and 5 in the requirements of some b. arts.
- the student must have taken courses in at least 10 different disciplines.
- the student must have an average between 70% and 90%.
- the student must be able to at least display flashes of brilliance.
- the student must be able to display long stretches of apathy towards his or her studies.
- the student must be diagnosed with a "controllable psychological concern".
number of candidates
- one candidate will be chosen every year.
awards & benefits
- the length of this scholarship is indefinite subject to the student meeting the conditions outlined in the next section.
- full tuition, books and all other scholastic costs.
- $20,000/yr living expenses, adjusted yearly for inflation to 2010 base levels.
- full medical, dental under a plan similar to that given to professors and staff.
- the student is entitled to one year of "sabbatical" per every ten years.
- if the student lasts ten years within this program, any and all remaining student loan debts will be wiped out by the scholarship.
- after ten years within the program, the student retains the right to modulate between years of teaching and years of studying at will, meaning the student can put the program "on hold" so long as s/he is putting it "on hold" in order to teach.
conditions
- the student must have an average above 90% at the beginning of each subsequent school year (september) in order to retain the scholarship.
- the student must take at least one math course, one science course, one essay-based arts or social science course and one applied arts course per year.
- the student may or may not take courses in the summer.
- the student is required to attend classes and to provide evidence in the form of signatures by the professor of the class at the beginning and ending of the class. this will be checked rigorously and weekly by an officer of the school. failure to attend classes without a good reason will result in immediate termination of the scholarship.
- the student must not use non-prescribed drugs or alcohol between the times of 8:00 AM and 8:00 PM on weekdays and, if found doing so, will be immediately cut off from funding.
perhaps the change in mindset is a bit more apparent now; this is a scholarship designed to pull old, nihilist, depressed, under-achieving students out of their own oblivion and provide them with some kind of meaning and purpose. it is consequently, fundamentally, a means of social welfare, not a loan to enhance opportunity or an attempt to differentiate the best from the pack, and so a very different approach to both scholastics and to scholarships.
i propose that the scholarship is implemented beginning in september, 2010 and that the first candidate is......me. great! yet, who is going to fund my noble construction?