Beware Section Freaks And Geeks

Picture a Tuesday afternoon in my cozy one-room double: I'm working on a paper, sun warming my back, when my roommate comes into the room.

She's like Cosmo Kramer--she doesn't just walk, she makes an entrance, for better or worse. This time, she flings herself onto her bed. Used to her histrionics, I'm like, "Yeah, whatever--you'll get over your latest trauma." But this time she had a problem I could identify with.

Her first words were, "It's Mean Evil Heroes Boy again."

What seemed like a totally incomprehensible statement was perfectly understandable to me. "Mean Evil Heroes Boy? Of course!" I thought. He is a guy in her section. She coined the name because of his pretentious behavior during section. When anyone says anything, he laughs snidely, muttering comments under his breath.

So I listened for a little while, trying to be sympathetic, but then I thought about my own humanities section experiences. As a history and literature concentrator, I attend a lot of humanities sections and seminars, and some of the people are, as my roommate says, "out of control."

One guy in my Af-Am class took it upon himself to have an extended conversation with the professor during a lecture. Immediately I mocked him--silently of course.

"As stimulating as I find your conversation, I'd kind of like to get back to the topic at hand, if you don't mind," I thought. It's not a seminar, buddy.

But this was just the beginning. It turns out that most of my acquaintances--from hallmates to housemates--have encountered these miscreants. It becomes something of a game: spot the section geek. Each is a unique case of pretension, but here are a few of the common models you can watch out for:

. The one-hit wonder: this person has one conception of the class's themes and repeats it in every section. For instance, a guy who in a section talks about conceptions of democracy every week, even if the topic is the agricultural revolution. The first time the unexpected connection is entertaining, even surprising or insightful. After four sections, one begins to realize that the initially tenuous links are starting to wear very thin.

. The high school debater: this person just talks, and talks and talks. We don't have stop watches like their judges used to, but we sure wish we did. Even the Parliamentary Debate Society doesn't want people who talk nonstop.

. The name-dropper: these section tools would mention Kierkegaard in a history of American economics class. It sounds familiar, and it might be relevant, but the rest of you don't know. Worse, no one else can participate in the conversation because Kierkegaard is not part of the assigned reading.

Every week it's something new but never useful. If the section were about Ancient Greece, he might bring up Gandhi's philosophy of satyagraha, but if it's about modern India, Plato is the man of the hour.

. The jargon fiend: deconstructionism, New Criticism, revisionism, structuralism, post-modernism, existentialism, your-mamaism: the jargon fiend knows them all.

. The straight up brown-noser: he agrees with everything the TF says. He's the person you didn't like in high school, but worse, because he's gotten into Harvard and thinks he's the man. All these people want is a rec.

. The too-cool commentator: she doesn't have anything substantive to say, but can smirk at your inane comments. But there's no reason to let you know that everyone notices that.

Though the section freaks can be pretentious, annoying, weird and just plain scary, they've enhanced my own section experience at times. Section geeks have caused me to become closer to other people in my sections.

The shared unpleasant experience often draws people closer. My pre-med friends always chat about the guy that always asked questions in Chem 10 lecture, and now always asks questions in BS I lecture. My economics friends talk about their section-mates who worship famous professors--such as Stone Professor of International Trade Jeffrey D. Sachs '76 and Baker Professor of Economics Martin S. Feldstein '61. Friends who share academic interests and acceptable section behavior can commiserate about their experiences.

Another reason these anomalies are encouraging is that they reassure us about our own normalcy. If people are not discussing you at the dinner table, you're probably safe.

But overall remember that, although the behavior is pretentious, you can always count on these people. They're going to talk for sure, so if you skimmed the reading over your flyby in Loker the hour before section, you can just sit back. For all the times that one of the talkers has saved me, I can put up with my temporary boredom or annoyance. Unfortunately, I am rarely only temporarily annoyed--rather, the irritation lasts about an hour.