Kaback: How college changes you

I woke up well after my mother one morning during spring break. I walked into our kitchen where… I woke up well after my mother one morning during spring break. I walked into our kitchen where breakfast food was waiting for me, alongside a nice tall glass of orange juice and the sports section, laid out just for my enjoyment.

There was only one problem. While high-school Andrew would have been on cloud nine, college Andrew was downright upset. Thanks for the well wishes, Mom, but you don’t know me at all!

You see, there are a number of activities that we only do because we’re in college. While white-collar professionals might wonder how they can make a dozen trips to the water cooler in one day when they aren’t that fond of water, college kids have equally unique attributes.

Sorry family and friends, but I’m not the same person who loved eating fruit and spending my free time playing sports. It’s sad, really, but the truth is that since enrolling at Pitt I’ve become a new me: a college student.

So what are these mysterious actions are special to the university student? Glad you asked.

Netflix in the library/bed. Every time we go home, our families will ask if we want to watch the new show that’s on tonight. Um, there are show times? Television schedules exist in a post-George Bush world? Well consider that something that I missed. Make no mistake: I love watching TV. Whether it’s “Mad Men,” “Breaking Bad,” “Arrested Development,” “Weeds” or a dozen others that I could list, I watch them all. I don’t watch them on a television though. Instead, I initiate an easy three-step process: 1. Pick a new show. 2. Spend the next 22 hours doing nothing but watching it. 3. Cry about the impending midterm that I haven’t studied for.

Breakfast in the afternoon. Let’s be real. Have you ever seen more than 10 people in Market Central before they start serving lunch? I don’t even wake up until most restaurants have switched off their morning menus. That doesn’t mean that I don’t turn into a regular Ron Swanson at the sight of a breakfast buffet. I just eat it in the afternoon. Or in the nighttime. Or at pretty much any time other than when I’m supposed to eat it.

Drinking coffee. Come the heck on! We wake up for our 11 a.m. class and spend the night guzzling Red Bulls. Why do we need coffee? Yet in every class, at least a third of the students have a mug of steaming java just beyond their notebooks. OK, I often do too. But I admit that it has absolutely nothing to do with staying up. It makes me feel professional or studious or … well, something that I’m supposed to be. Maybe Hollywood has just put too many coffee shop meetings in my head, or I’ve underestimated the adverse effects of caffeine, but I will spend the next few years unnecessarily fidgeting with an uneasy stomach so that I can look cool.

Getting our news from Twitter. Look, the upcoming election matters a lot to me, but there is a big problem with traditional news media. They run stories that are long. Really long. And honestly, how many of these words actually matter? Do I care about the random people and places that Gov. Mitt Romney or President Barack Obama traveled and met? No. Do I care about the stupid off-camera quote that was picked up? Absolutely. And that’s what Twitter does for me. Just one friend or media outlet needs to let me know that a gaffe was made, and my day is set.

Planning to be unproductive. In the real world, people make plans to do things. I used to map out trips and convene gatherings. I still do those things, but now it’s more spur of the moment. The only instance when college students plan is when they want to do nothing: days of “Law and Order” marathons, Madden games and Twilight books. We block off times in which we can sit in pajamas and stare blankly at computer monitors. Adults make plans to go out. I make plans to stay in.

So the Andrew that attends Pitt might not be the same boy that left home after high school. Let’s face it, we’ve all succumbed to the life of a college student. Some of us might have stuck to cable and healthy eating longer than others, but there’s no denying that once college takes its hold of us, we all become students. That means we all become what amounts to just a lazy human being.

Contact Andrew at aak47@pitt.edu