1. The professor says “Let’s get some new voices in the conversation” every time you raise your hand.
  2. You get hard every time someone piggybacks off of your train of thought.
  3. You advocate for the devil.
  4. The devil advocates for you. 
  5. Your pulse races and your craniofacial arteries bulge if you haven’t referenced an unassigned passage of Hegel, Heidegger, or Marx in the past 10 minutes. 
  6. You cry when you receive an A- so the regular people in your section ask if you’re okay, which is the perfect segue for you to seem approachable by modestly explaining that you just received your first A-. 
  7. You GroupMe DM someone after class to inform them that they mispronounced Wittgenstein: “lol I know it was a mistake, just wanted to let you know that the ‘ei’ is pronounced ‘i’ because the etymology of the name is actually German, lol ur totally good it just sounded weird and i only know because i’ve read a lot of his works.’”
  8. You ask complicated questions that are simultaneously backhanded compliments in the last three minutes of section, extending the class time another 15 minutes. (“I love what Marie said, but I want to push back on it a little…”)
  9. Nietzsche is your safeword. 
  10. You’ve never had a chance to use it.

—A. Golden