Everyone hates college students. They’re annoying! Have you ever watched a movie or a TV show with a college student who has taken one film class? They start calling out all the “continuity errors” and saying stupid things like “did you see that zoom-in-dolly-out?” It’s unbearable.

But now we have yet another reason, backed up by real, scientific proof, to hate college students.

“I noticed an increased sense of entitlement in my students and wanted to discover what was causing it,” said Prof. Ellen Greenberger, who ran a University of California, Irvine survey which explored this “entitlement” problem.

A third of students surveyed said that they expected B’s just for attending lectures, and 40 percent said they deserved a B for completing the required reading.

“Part of the problem is that our universities are running on an economic model,” said Assistant Professor of English Traci Connor. “You get this idea, that ‘I paid, I showed up on time, I did all my assignments, now give me my A.'”

“The focus on grades is a problem because it diminishes the pleasure – and the difficulty – of learning,” said Learning Commons tutor Douglas Smith. “Such a focus turns learning into commerce.”

School isn’t just about getting good grades, as hard as that may seem for many of us to comprehend. It’s not just about getting a good degree either.

People I worked with over the summer – hard-working, blue collar people on the Massachusetts Highway Department – used to ask me what my major was at college.

I would always be embarrassed to tell them that I’m an English major. They’d laugh at me, call their buddies over, and make stupid jokes about how “Sammy-boy is gonna write for Penthouse!” (“Sam’s Sexcapades” is what they called my make-believe article).

Then they’d ask me “What the hell do you do with an English major? Teach English class?” To which I would tell them, “Hell no,” and that I actually had no idea what I was going to do with my degree.

Being in college and not having any plans for using your degree is a pretty common among college kids today. But admitting my indecisiveness to people who never even considered college an option? I hated that.

Then I realized that throughout my few years at college, I have learned a lot of interesting things. And had I remained in western Massachusetts working for the city filling in potholes, I’d be making money and not be in debt, but the only things I would learn would be how to rake asphalt without burning my eyes; how to act sober in front of the boss; and how to back a dump truck into a garage using only the side mirrors – interesting stuff for one summer, but that gets old after about 20 years.

That’s not to mention all the interesting people I’ve met, or the new part of the country I’ve seen, or the books I’ve been turned on to, or any of those great life experiences that come with getting a college education.

That embarrassingly cheesy spiel being said, don’t get me wrong by thinking that I believe college students are any better than the working man. It’s quite the opposite.

I actually try to hide my college-student stigma as best I can whenever I’m off campus, and for good reason – just go down to the caf and look at the wall of suggestions.

Every once in a while there will be something like “Love the fruit salad!” or “Cereal Rox!” but most of them are complaints or outrageous demands like telling the caf to “buy local produce” or that the “tofu is overcooked,” without any thought to the hardworking men and women who have to plop food on the plates of arrogant students, or top off the coffee cisterns that fill the ugly and useless ceramic mugs so many Guilford students “fired in the kiln after peace and conflict class.”

It’s a school cafeteria. It’s supposed to suck – just be happy you’re privileged enough to even go to a college.