Illustration by Reine Defranco/The Gazelle

With all the recent hullabaloo about Core courses and writing workshops, I think this is a good time to confess something that you should know about me before we take our relationship any further: I’m doing four Core courses this semester.

To exacerbate the implications of this confession, I must also admit that I didn’t know of the all-important Don’t-Take-Cores-With-Single-Word-Titles rule, so three out of my four Cores are conferred with those damning one-word names: Handkerchiefs. Dumplings. Refrigeration. Who knew that these would be worse than, What is A Door Handle?

Anyway, when I first came here and told people that I was doing four Cores, I was met with commiseration and comforting pats on the back. This was when I realized that taking four Cores was a big deal. I didn’t quite see why, but of course I milked it like one would milk a camel. I became the Arts and Humanities’ version of an Foundation of Science student: “I have no time for anything, I have four Cores,” I’d complain as I sat beneath the palm trees sipping my Starbucks and meditating on the vagaries of life. Just as FOS students have given themselves the fond nickname of Fossies, I began to affectionately refer to myself as a Corey.

What I never spoke about, though, were the essays.

There are a lot of them – more than the number of Anastasiyas on campus. As you know, these aren’t like the essays you wrote back in high school, such as “The TL;DR version of what Karl Marx said about moolah.” The difficulties of college level essay-writing, I believe, are embodied in the very document that is supposed to make writing easier: that little purple handout that they refer to as “The Writing Lexicon.” Excellent material for making paper planes. “Or origami,” responds the Culturally Aware Global Citizen.

Let’s begin with the thesis statement. To write a thesis, you need a topic. Usually professors are benevolent enough to prescribe one. Some, however, are sadists who like to watch the world burn, and say things like, “Write about anything that interests you.” What do they mean? Plenty of things interest me. Vic Lindsay’s action figures. Soup. Hitler’s moustache. It is complete anarchy. I am thrown into such a state of disarray that I scan through the vast body of knowledge that has been indoctrinated into me over the semester, and then inevitably pick the social pariah of all topics. If I were to write an essay about fruits for a class called Meaning of the Apple, I would choose tomatoes.

Next, I need a thesis statement about tomatoes. A thesis statement must be innovative, surprising, compelling. How shall I use my writer’s voice to say something emotionally engaging about tomatoes? “Tomatoes are essentially solidified ketchup,” I scribble, “AND YET” – this phrase is paramount to surprise and thrill your reader – “ketchup tastes better.” Boom. The most interesting, controversial and life-changing thesis statement in the history of mankind.

I also need a motive, or “intellectual context” for my essay. This is incredibly difficult. To be honest, the intellectual context for most of my essays is, “If I use this big word in the title it will seem impressive.” The Writing Lexicon asks me to give my readers an academic reason for why I’m writing this essay. “Please read this essay about tomatoes because it counts for 20 percent of my final grade and I missed the add/drop deadline,” I write. Honestly, the only intellectual context I can think of for most of my essays is, “The College Lyfe.”

Other aspects of essay writing that deter my quest for interdisciplinary knowledge are the introductions and conclusions. Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music once said, “The very beginning is a good place to start.” So I begin my essay on tomatoes with, “In the beginning there was nothing, but then God created the universe. Tomatoes appeared on the third day and ketchup appeared on the sixth. For the three days in between, people were forced to eat bland french fries.” On the other hand, my conclusions always end with “Therefore” or “In conclusion,” followed by the exact words of the introduction. I always assume that by the time the readers reach the end, they’ll be so confused they won’t remember how it started.

What I dread most of all, though, is the word limit. Essay word limits are exactly like toilet paper in two respects: 1) You’re either an “over-er” or an “under-er” and 2) It always runs out when you need it the most. Under-ers are those who think it suffices to say “Tomatoes bad. Ketchup yum. Tummy happy.” I, however, am an over-er, which means that I always exceed word counts. This is mainly because I leave no stone unturned when conducting my exhaustive research on the topic at hand. I have watched The Ketchup Song exactly 37 times.

This, in turn, brings me to the editing. I hate the drafting and editing process because I’m terrible with criticism. My professors usually try to break the news to me gently, “Supriya, this is an interesting essay. I especially enjoyed the part where you switch into stream-of-consciousness mode and reflect on your rocky relationship with condiments. But I’m wondering whether it’s really necessary to use the word “very” 37 times in one sentence?” “OH MY GOD, YOU HATE IT!” I cry and run out of the room. Behind me, I can faintly hear the professor humming The Ketchup Song to himself. Hypocrite.

On a relatively optimistic note, the easiest part is undoubtedly the citation of sources. If you think about it, everything you know about the material world comes from one of the following three sources: 1) Aristotle 2) Immanuel Kant and 3) Charles Grim. Shuffle the three around and you get the epitome of well-cited essays:

“The idea of ketchup is innate to human beings.” (Kant, 1782).

“Tomatoes must complete the P.E. Requirement before studying abroad.” (Grim, 2015).

See? It works out.

In conclusion, with all the recent hullabaloo about Core courses and writing workshops, I think this is a good time to confess something that you should know about me before we take our relationship any further: I’m doing four Core courses this semester.