Are you halfway through your first year at Yale? Did you enroll in Directed Studies, but you’re not sure if you should stick with it? Are you having a mid-year crisis? If you answered “Yes” or “Yes—by the way, did you know I’m in DS?” to any of those questions, you’re in the right place! Use this quiz to help you determine the path of the rest of your college career.
- Are you a STEM major? If not, continue to the next question. If you are, stop reading and go work on your p-set. It was assigned last week, but we both know you haven’t started yet.
- Do you believe the unexamined life is worth living? If you’d like to find out the answer from history’s most pretentious virgins, continue to question 3. Otherwise, go live a normal life. Please!
- Do you believe in God? If you only do because Pascal says you have nothing to lose, mosey on ahead. Otherwise, quit now and register for Econ 115 before it’s too late. You might learn useful stuff, like graphs or something.
- Which is more important: success or friendship? If you value either, get out while you still can.
- Why is anything a thing?
- What is human beings’ purpose on this earth, besides to suffer in our own consciousness?
- If a cable car is careening uncontrollably on a track towards five people, would you throw a switch to divert it to a track with one man standing on it? How about if the five was your family and the one was Homer himself, caressing an original copy of the Iliad?
- Could you answer any of the past three questions? No you couldn’t. If you somehow think you did, continue, but know that you were wrong on all three questions.
If you made it to the end of the quiz, you might actually have a shot at finishing DS! Congrats, nerd. Have fun reading Harry Potter or whatever. Otherwise, you should most definitely drop DS. Rest up, because you’ll need to take seven classes next semester!
—E. Quittman