Editor in Chief Isabel Sepúlveda provides the Columbia community with an actual email she sent to an actual professor teaching an actual class that’s guaranteed to get you off the waitlist. Here’s to your soon-to-be perfect schedule.

Dear Professor I-Just-Invented,

My name is Isabel Sepúlveda and I’m a junior at Columbia College studying humanities subjects that will never make me any money. I’m applying for your seminar UN6969 Memes Throughout the Ages: Prehistoric to Postmodern. I have not taken anything I can even remotely stretch into “relevant coursework” so I’ve decided that instead of torturing you with increasingly ridiculous comparisons, I will simply list six reasons why refusing to let me into this class will be a detriment to the intellectual community you are trying to build in the Spring 2020 semester.

  1. I care very deeply about the subject matter. While I have never taken a “class” in this subject, per se, I have gone on several 4 AM Wikipedia binges about topics peripheral to this. Now The Algorithms keep serving me ads about it that I don’t really understand and I need to know if I’m on some kind of weird NSA watchlist now.
  2. I desperately need this class to graduate. As of my meeting with my advisor yesterday, I am officially majoring in whatever subject it is that you specifically chair the department for (unless you are not the department chair in which case, the department you one day may possibly chair if tenured jobs still exist in 20 years). Given that this change was rather sudden and not at all so I could bully my way into this course, I will not be able to graduate on time unless I’m admitted into this course. This was poor planning on behalf of my second-year self and I apologize.
  3. It’s all SSOL’s fault. Yes, I had a 9:30 AM registration time but in my defense, I forgot and then I had to wait a week. Yes, once I remembered, I may have accidentally added it to my Wish List instead of putting myself on the waitlist, but my confusion is absolutely justified. They shouldn’t have made both of them “lists” start with W. The potential for error is too great. I think we both can agree SSOL is pretty dumb and just leave it at that.
  4. I can’t afford to personally bribe every person already in the class AND ahead of me on the waitlist. True it might only be a class of 15 people but I’m 10th on the waitlist and those bribes…I mean expenses really start to add up quickly.
  5. I will do your laundry. Every week, wash and fold. And don’t take this offer for granted because I can’t even bring myself to do my own laundry every week.
  6. The class I’d have to take instead of this sucks. It meets on Friday, Professor. Please, show mercy.

Thank you so much for your time and attention and I hope to hear from you soon!

Best,

A Very Desperate Student

waitlists as far as the eye can see via SSOL