This is a view of the Yale Alumni Magazine that was in my mail today.  Right address, wrong name.  I’m a SUNY Cortland grad, thank you very much.  Frankly, I’m offended that this rubbish showed up in my mail box and soiled my junk mail with its Ivy League bullshit.  How dare the U.S. Postal Service think that I had any sort of connection to this shit institution.

Surely I gest.  I’m flattered that Yale would allow me to peruse the pages of their alumni periodical.  And peruse I did.  People, they have things in this magazine that they don’t have in Sports Illustrated or Wired or Time or the Victoria’s Secret catalog.  They have articles on things like an “artificial neural network” and Title IX sexual assault complaints.  They have information on things like The Yale Club and alumni authors who’ve written books on Thomas Paine.  And they have advertisements for things like BMWs, matchmakers for Ivy League bachelors, and a website called momentsintime.com which sells historical documents like a real copy of the Declaration of Independence ($2.5 million), the 13th Amendment ending slavery signed by President Lincoln ($4.25 million), or Schindler’s actual list (price on request).  The page before this ad had a picture of recent Yale seniors sitting in a hot tub on spring break in Myrtle Beach.  Finally, something I can relate to.

My college career was, shall we say, checkered at best.  I started at Ithaca College as a Physical Education major.  Like my father before me, I thought I wanted to teach and coach.  I thought wrong.  There is nothing wrong with being a Phys Ed teacher, but after a year, it just didn’t do much for me.  And going to Ithaca College to major in gym was like going to Yale to major in gym.  It was a waste of the vast resources available to me at that school.  It was an awful big financial nut to be responsible for when you’re planning on being a teacher.  So, I transferred to SUNY Cortland to save money, continued my Phys Ed major for another semester, then switched to the major of choice for people who like TV, movies and music, but don’t know what to do for a living…Communications.

I did everything wrong when I transferred to Cortland.  That is not hyperbole; it is fact.  First. I didn’t change majors right away.  I suffered through another boring semester of gym classes that were completely uninspiring.  Then I decided to switch to Communications after I had just left Ithaca, which is one of the best Communications schools in the country.  After that, for a myriad of reasons, I had a 3-year downward spiral that didn’t end until I went into the Navy (see “Never Again Volunteer Yourself Parts 1 through 7” on this site for a fun story).

I finally graduated, but it took a bit longer than it should have.  I had to play a little catch-up after getting a 0.5 GPA one semester.  I wish that was a typo.  I did eventually learn how to do college properly, i.e. go to class and fucking pay attention.  It makes the experience so much easier when you learn that.  I must be a glutton for punishment though, because I’m about to start an Executive MBA program next month.  And no, it’s not at Yale.

An eerie side note to my SUNY Cortland years: I started there in August 1991.  Nirvana released their seminal album, Nevermind, one month later.  I was a massive fan of the band, the album, and Kurt Cobain.  In those dark years for me, they provided an outlet to rage.  And rage I did.  In addition to raging, I also got angry at everything for no reason, blew off any interest in school, shunned all responsibility, and drank way too much.  Nirvana’s influence on my life was immeasurable and I do mean that in a good way.  Then, Cobain killed himself in April 1994.  I began Navy basic training and changed my life forever one month later.  Coincidence?