As I snake through the eerie Education Building in search of my POLI 244 conference, my stomach rumbles. I root through my slightly too small but impossibly stylish purse for a granola bar, and I wonder if Severance inspired this building design.
A few minutes early, I wait for my TA and open the readings for the week, definitely not for the first time. Prepared with a few insights and questions (Game Theory?) and temporarily satiated from my stale granola bar, I am eager to learn, discuss, and get a break from Economics problem sets and the mouse in my apartment.
The room fills up; there are far too many chairs and not enough desks. Laptops rest on laps, water bottles scatter the floor, and Longchamps sit in salty slush. For a minute or so, we’re all seated, silent, wide-eyed, and expectant as the TA opens a PowerPoint full of quotes and questions.
After attendance is complete, I watch a third of the screens in the room fill with iMessage or the New York Times Mini Crossword (followed by Connections, Wordle, and Strands). These minds are now elsewhere (free?), never to be grounded (trapped?) in EDUC415 again. I watch people online shop, check scores, answer emails, make weekend plans. Slightly envious—and slightly disappointed by their detachment—I stare daggers into my half-finished lecture notes, hoping for a revelation.
Due to the shrunken number of engaged minds, it depends on the rest of us to facilitate discussion. A booming familiar voice fills my ears. I sigh; Mr. PoliSci Bro has something to say (as always). The class turns their heads to listen, nodding appropriately to incomprehensible jargon and a slurry of statistics spat out too quickly to fact-check. He talks and talks, burying potentially solid points in layers of obvious self-assurance and male dominance. I lose track of the discussion—is he really referring to a 400-level political science course he’s taking “for fun?”
I struggle to breathe with all the air Mr. PoliSci Bro is taking up. Still, I raise my hand. I see a flicker of relief in the TA’s eyes, as she looks at the attendance to remember my name. I ask about Game Theory (What is it? When will I next taste freedom?). The TA opens my question up to the class. Perhaps they can help me. The girl sitting next to me looks up from Hay Day momentarily, but she swiftly switches to Block Blast.
Someone in the first row raises their hand, giving an almost too concise definition of Game Theory to the TA. I feel embarrassed. How could they synthesize the 40-page reading so easily? When I lower my gaze from the back of their head to their laptop, I see ChatGPT open, prompted by: “What is Game Theory, 2 sentence definition.”
The conversation opens up a bit more. A few brave souls raise their verbal swords to the mighty Mr. PoliSci Bro. I participate here and there, losing myself briefly in a Spotted McGill rabbit hole. Latecomers arrive eventually, ChatGPT triumphs inevitably, and Aritzia makes a few sales while the lull of Mr. PoliSci Bro becomes almost therapeutic.
After 50 minutes of witnessing the squandering of my academic optimism, I stand on McTavish feeling confused, angry, and dreading a future society with these people in charge. The obvious disinterest in the real world disheartens me, but I get it. Everything is terrible.
Hungry again, I debate going home or to my eternal perch on floor three of Schulich. I turn off Do Not Disturb to find a text from my roommate: “Mouse is back, brought its friends.” Great. Luckily, my friends back home have sent a dozen Instagram Reels to lift my spirits.
I try my best to stay vertical as I inch down an already icy stretch of McTavish. Looking up momentarily from my careful steps, I see the sun setting—it’s already 4:30 p.m., after all.
