If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard a form of the phrase, “I love Serendipity; I feel like I go to a real school,” I’d have enough dollars to pay Common to put on a show here. I’ve heard it so much it disturbs me, actually.Teachers being busted at student concerts. Young women nakedly running from foul pole to foul pole at baseball games. A Grammy-nominated artist putting on a show for a not so Grammy-like crowd. This is what happens at a real school, according to the student participants of Guilford’s infamous Serendipity.

I, for one, can’t live like I lived for those two awesome days year round. At risk of incriminating myself, I will throw it out there that I enjoy Serendipity. Everyone should. But, it’s more than Serendipity that separates Guilford from most schools.

The students that declared they wanted to go to a real school should open their eyes. Serendipity definitely opened mine. The problem was as clear as the naked co-eds running on the baseball field.

A couple weeks back, I drove to War Memorial Auditorium to enjoy a Guilford- sponsored event. Nobel- and Pulitzer-prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison was speaking. Although I got there late, I noticed a startlingly low number of students taking advantage of this opportunity.

Fast forward to the Bryan Quad one Serendipity night. The place was packed; I could hardly walk. There had to have been 50 or more students greater than were present for Toni Morrison. The night before, even more students turned up to listen to Saurus, a band of lab-jacketed adolescents singing about dinosaurs. Not to take anything away from Saurus, but they were no Toni Morrison.

College is definitely a place to have fun. Students at larger, or “real” colleges, as a few drunken Guilford students would say, have no more fun than we do at Guilford. But, larger schools rarely have small gatherings where one can listen to a Nobel Prize winner speak.

Being drunk all of the time is not what a real school does. A real school, while still having fun, commits itself to excellence in all categories. A real school has a united campus, not only in times of celebration, but also in times of turmoil. A real school can rebound from the areas Guilford had to rebound from earlier this year. The speakers Guilford brought after the backlash of the Bryan incident are what should have united campus – not three-day drunkenness.

If you’d rather participate in a race of who can drink a baseball bat full of beer the fastest than listen to famous actors, politicians, Nobel Prize winners or religious heroes, then do us all a favor – transfer to a “real school.