WUnderground WashU's Premier (only) Satirical Newspaper Est. 2004
Sniffling hopelessly over the stream of tears that drenched the remains of her taco salad, freshman Emily Weitzman finally became the last member of the Class of 2019 to abandon her hopeful image of Washington University. The soggy, lukewarm appropriation of Mexican food was the last straw, according to reports, but a number of factors contributed to Weitzman’s tragic realization that WashU would not live up to any of her long-held visions of how wonderful college could be.
“Being called a ‘worthless pool of dog vomit’ by my advisor really hurt,” explained Weitzman to her three suitemates, all of whom had long since relinquished their aspirations for a positive college experience, “but it’s mostly the little things that got to me. Why does that kid in my psych class put his boogers on my chair? Why did SPB get Kygo for WILD? Whyyyyyyy?” Weitzman’s suitemates attempted to console her, but resorted to calling EST when she started screaming about the complexity of the compost and recycling system.
The date of Weitzman’s ultimate disenchantment with WashU, October 29th, is 14 days later than the historic median date at which the last freshman usually abandons all hope. The class of 2018 reached that point, which the administration calls “Mission Accomplished Day,” a record three days after convocation. The class of 2003 holds the record for the longest period of misguided enthusiasm, with last holdout Will Green retaining his naive belief in the goodness of WashU until December 11th of that year, when he discovered that a mailroom employee had knowingly eaten the cookies Green’s mom had sent him as a reading week pick-me-up.
“We usually aim to crush everyone’s dreams by October or November at the latest,” said calculus professor Todd Washington, who sits on a special committee tasked with creating emotionally traumatic classroom experiences. “Any longer than that and we see students get into some really rough mental breaks when it does happen. We’re evil, sure, but we try to be pragmatic about it.”
At press time, Weitzman was somewhat encouraged by the improvement her salty tears made to the flavor of her taco salad.
