By Jillian McLaughlin

Established Expert:  Thank you very much, it was a pleasure. I’ll take your questions.

Applause, silence. Then a hand.

Student:  I understand how you came to hold your position, but it seems to me that you’re not taking into account the social construction of truth whereby everything you just said was a mere reflection of the diabolical machinations of The Man. 

Established Expert:  What?  Wait, that’s not really a question.

Student:  Regardless, how would you respond?

Established Expert:  You make no sense.

Student:  So you concede the point?  Very big of you; I have no further objections.

The semicolon is distinctly audible in this last declaration.

And thus the student has been exposed for the pretentious college student he or she is. Like my hairdresser says, “If you’ve got it: own it, flaunt it.”

Stuff Liberal Arts Students Like is a regular blog on The Kosmopolitan.  If you recognize yourself in this blog, it may or may not be because it’s astonishingly accurate.  Or I may be talking specifically about you.