Written On The Walls Of Bathroom Stalls
As the curtains close on high school, young adults are promptly thrust forth into the decision-making process that will propel the remainder of their lives. College comes into play (probably more often than it should, but that’s a post for another time) and with college, comes confusion. Freshly-born infants of adulthood arrive on the campus of their choosing and the picking portion of the four-year-event persists. Pick your housing. Pick your friends. Pick your major. Pick the beer that will get you through it all.
Selecting a subject to study for four years and a task to tolerate as career forevermore is a little more complicated than our culture seems to consider. Luckily, my routine Bentley Hall bathroom break brought me the insight to solve this educational flaw for all future freshman. You see, over the last two years, my miniature-like bladder has provided me the pleasure of perusing the wide range of restrooms Ohio University offers. I don’t discriminate against a building’s academic focus when it comes to coffee’s diuretic effect, and for that reason, I’ve noticed a concept that could change college tours forever.
Fret not, my freshman friends, about your major-deciding dilemma. Look to the bathroom stalls!
When else might students express themselves most purely and privately than while performing an act as instinctive as using the toilet? Forget aptitude tests. I believe a Buzzfeed quiz entitled, “What Your Bathroom Wall Writings Say About Your Career Path” could much more accurately direct our deeply-embedded desires for the future. Sociologists, Anthropologists, Biologists – I’m calling all ologists to study and assess the comfort station phenomenon. Can categorizing which bathroom graffiti grabs one’s attention guide their long-term goals and aspirations? My hypothesis: Hell yes it can.
Stumped on selecting your nine-to-five future? Take a gander at what those in each major have to say while they’re bidding farewell to their breakfasts.
Which toilet-seat scenery suits you best? Are you a fan of the English building’s stall walls, littered with literature quotes and soul-searching idealism? Do you prefer the Media building’s bathroom doodles, animated personalities creatively expressing their introverted outlooks? In the Social Sciences building, you’ll find flyers for saving the population from its impending downfall and invitations to formal affairs. Sound like fun? Perhaps the lavatory adjacent to environmental science classrooms calls your name, with its illustrations of the will to redeem trees and rescue our planet? The art building’s loo expresses any and every emotion one could possibly experience while ridding their body of its waste, and usually with skilled technique and eye-catching color schemes. Does the bathroom on the Philosophy floor fit your fancy, with its transformative take on intrinsic value? Communications kids might be making grammar jokes on the walls that enclose their alone time. Does reading them make you chuckle?
Can the art of the exposed, expose your future?
Perhaps you prefer the art of a more intoxicatedly excreting crowd. You notice only the #genericshufflenames speckled with liquor pitcher regurgitation and phone numbers written regretfully in Sharpie, dimly displayed in disease-ridden restrooms of Court Street. You’re not alone if these bathroom walls are what call your name. Athens is home to plenty of party-driven deciders. However, you probably won’t graduate.
It seems logical to me, really. Which of the following is easier to determine?
In which academic building do I belong? In which academic building bathroom do I belong? It’s much easier to gauge your comfort level in one place over the other, is it not?
Finally, I have it figured out for you all. Or maybe college is just making me weirder.