The Mike Snyder Blog

Anybody who has read my column is all too familiar with the above phrase. I remember sitting in Dewick one day listening to nearby students discuss the future of my major. They jokingly placed bets as to whether I would major in English, Philosophy, or something more arbitrary, like Women’s Studies.

Mike Snyder, LA ’09, is actually majoring in this. Surprised? At a school where the most popular anticipated major among incoming students is International Relations (often combined as a double major with Economics or a foreign language), it seems counter-intuitive that I would pick something so close to home.

My hair dresser is somewhat of a philosopher, and one day while he was cutting my hair, he told me his version of the three types of people in the world.

The first is what he calls the Creators. These are the movers and shakers, the perfectionists, the people who push things forward and change things up. They are also leaders, activists, risk-takers, and goal-setters. At a university setting, this manifests in many forms. Somebody who strives for a high GPA with visions of a good Grad School is a Creator. So is the Peace and Justice Studies major who travels to Central America twice a year to conduct research. Same goes for the hardworking and inspiring captain of a sports team.

The second is what my hair dresser calls the Watchers. These are the people on the sidelines, observing events and tracking outcomes. They generally don’t like the limelight and wish to stay detached. They don’t change things up, but open themselves up to change. They may have goals, but are less interested in fulfilling them than watching other people try and fulfill theirs.

I went to my friend’s 21st birthday party last weekend at his off-campus apartment. I reached the place and went inside, but was spotted before I had a chance to wipe the clumps of snow and ice off my shoes.

“Hey, Mike Snyder’s here!” my friend announced.

That was a horrible and evil thing for him to say, because it meant I would be spending the next two hours shaking hands with students I had never met before, desperately trying to prove that I was not some asshole who wanted to bring back prohibition and imprison anybody with a blood alcohol level greater than 0.0001.

For better or worse, “Mike Snyder” is a buzz phrase; only somebody who has read “Undergraduate, and Under the Influence” refers to me by my full name. I hear it and immediately recoil, looking to see how many drunks are standing between me and the door.

History was my specialty in high school, at least as far as high school specialties go. American history. Military history. Geography. Capital cities. I aced the World History SAT II—a personal accomplishment of mine, though I don’t think the college admissions committees cared much. At least my brothers were proud. They should be—they’re both high school history teachers.

With that in mind, it’s strange that I don’t study history in college. I might actually graduate from Tufts with only one history class under my belt. Two if I’m lucky.

I think I first became disillusioned with the subject because nobody gave a damn. The math and science geniuses at my high school received awards for their research, or sometimes just for scoring high on a test. But nobody ever talked about the history buffs—the bright-eyed kids who scoured the school library for books on Malcolm X, Japanese Samurai, or the Wonders of the Ancient World. A youngin’ excelling at the sciences was and still is today regarded as a future scientist, engineer, doctor, or physicist. But history is a hobby, a play thing. Something you do in your free time and not worthy of any serious recognition.