This is my last semester at ETSU. In my long and illustrious career at this university, I have seen many things. Some good, some bad. I feel it is my duty to share with you my thoughts on what I deem good and what I think sucks. For instance, I think the cafeteria food sucks. However, I do like the Mountain Dew Slurpees.
Here is a list I have compiled of things that suck and don’t suck about ETSU.
Things that don’t suck at ETSU:
10) Mountains – The campus has great views of the surrounding mountains and is no more than a five minute drive to Buffalo Mountain State Park or Cherokee National Forest.
9) Soups – The soups in the Buc-Mart kick butt and there are usually a few choices. They have saved me on many a hungover morning.
8) Sculptures – I just like some of the cool little sculptures . and the benches too.
7) The Library – If you get real high, it might be fun to go up to the top floor.
When you get there, go and lean all your body weight on the window by keeping your feet back and pressing your face against the glass.
Then just watch all the little people going to class below you, meanwhile pretending that you are free falling. You can make sounds if you wish.
6) The V.A. – A nice place to read, go for a walk, run or see a play in a replica of the Ford Theater. There is also the duck pond and the nice ducks, although my friend Diesel gets kinda weirded out by them. “Uhh, man these ducks are making me nervous. They’re just really aggressive.”
5) Walking Distance – The campus is compact enough to walk back and forth across without being substantially late, more importantly though, the campus is a mere walking distance to several watering holes that surround it.
4) Aesthetically Pleasing Campus – “One thing about them freshman girls, I get older they stay the same age.” Some of the big trees are really nice as well.
3) Dr. Cavender’s Southern Appalachian Folk Medicine Class – What else could you want?
Videos of snake-handling churches, herbal education, cool reading assignments about secret remedies as well as in-class lectures by faith healers, witches and Cherokee medicine men!
2) Campus Hiking/Biking Trails – An almost continuous 5-mile loop runs through the woods behind campus. Deer saunter through our backyard and we don’t even know it. The Southeastern Conference Mountain Bike Championships are held on these trails, which have prompted letters of praise from such universities as Florida, Clemson, Georgia, Florida State and Georgia Tech because they were so impressed that we had such a thing on campus.
However for some short-sighted reasons, the university wants to tear these woods down to build a road through the wooded area.
1) The Guy on Goldlink – “Welcome to East Tennessee State University Goldlink. Press three to go directly to the fee payment option.” What a cool job to have.
Things that suck at ETSU:
10) Heating and Cooling – Is there a such thing as a thermostat on this campus?
In the summer, the master cold button is pushed and the snows of the Planet Hoth are released.
In the winter, the red button is pushed and the small portal between area code 37614 and the ninth plane of hell is opened.
Why the hell is it so damn hard to make room temperatures bearable?
9) Desks – Some of our desks are older than dirt. I especially love the ones in Rogers-Stout that still have racial slurs from the 70s carved in them.
8) Dorms – Hey housing . why don’t you work on what you got, before you build anymore “bad living alternatives”?
7) The Dome – Whoever decided that our football team needed to play indoors because of our unbelievably mild and temperate weather was just plain stupid.
At least build the thing so people can see the whole field when they are in the stands.
6) Parking – That’s all I need to say about that.
5) No entertainment – We have this big auditorium that sits empty or at least with nothing else close to what other campuses have.
We get no music, no comedians, no lecturers, no nothing. I take that back, last semester didn’t they show The Lion King or something?
4) Office of Information Technology – They charge us fees every semester and now charge us for every page we print.
Here’s the problem, last semester the internet was down more times than a French whore on Bourbon Street and trying to print these days is like trying to play Jenga with no thumbs. Get it together OIT.
3) No Taco Bell – Yo quiero Taco Bell! Come on ARA, think outside the bun.
2) Holier Than Thou Fundamentalists – People that force their Bible belt, narrow mindedness on every thing from statistics class to bathroom urinals.
1) Dry Campus – Imagine if you will, a wonderful spring day, girls in their finest short shorts and belly-button revealing shorts, an ultimate Frisbee game in the distance, your feet propped up enjoying a seven-layer burrito and some Nachos Bell Grande (remember we have Taco Bell in happy land) and a nice, cold frothy ale that was poured from the taps in the Cave.
Had a big test, go take a load off, have a beer. Say hi to everyone you see, hold the doors for all that pass, have another beer, have three … ah, what a perfect world it could be.

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