#75: Carl Ackermann

Every major and department at Notre Dame is filled with professors that students love and professors that students loathe, but few majors are as lucky as those students in the College of Business that have the opportunity to take class with and learn from Professor Carl Ackermann (or Carl, as he insists his students call him).

Carl is hailed by his students as the best professor at the University because of what he does both inside and outside of the classroom.  Inside the classroom, students love the meticulous and interesting way in which he explains the material.  He engages his students in ways that aren’t forced or awkward and makes sure that each student understands every topic before moving on.  He makes class fun by joking with or about the students, and he brings an unparalleled enthusiasm to every class he teaches.

Even more remarkable than his teaching ability is his capacity to get to know each and every one of his students.  Despite the fact that he teaches over 600 students in a semester, Carl makes sure to know each one of their names and even something about them.  He develops personal relationships with his students that go beyond his ability to help them learn finance or how to plan their personal finances.

Carl’s students all have personal stories about their relationship with the teacher and the things he’s done for them.  Whether it be postponing a test for a student whose favorite sports team has a big game the night before, driving a student to the bus station as he is leaving campus at the end of the semester, attending a student’s bookstore basketball game, or calling a student to tell them that they did a great job on his exam, Carl goes out of his way to foster relationships with students and know how he can help them.

Carl Ackermann might be a great finance professor to his students, but he is certainly a great friend and mentor that cares about his students far more than most professors.  He teaches students how to accumulate wealth, and also encourages them to think about ways to use that wealth to give back to others.  He understands Notre Dame Students, and helps his students, and it is because of these things that he is beloved by his students years after they have taken his class.

#72: Talking About How Awesome London Was

One of the great experiences that many students have while attending Notre Dame is studying abroad.  During their junior year students can spend a semester or even a year studying in many far-reaching corners of the globe at locations such as Shanghai, China; Toledo, Spain; Santiago, Chile; Dublin, Ireland; and Fremantle, Australia.  These (and other) locations are interesting because of how their programs are set up.  Many feature students living with host families and taking classes with students from around the world.

Of all the abroad programs, however, the most unique and important is The London Program.

The London Program is unique because it is operated entirely by the University.  Students live in flats filled with other Notre Dame Students (in a building dominated by Notre Dame Students), they take all of their classes with only Notre Dame Students (classes that are taught by Notre Dame professors, in a building owned by the University), and they spend much of the semester travelling around Europe with other Notre Dame Students.

While other abroad programs grant students the opportunity to live and learn with students of different cultures, the London Program gives students the opportunity to create a miniature version of Notre Dame in a city that is decidedly more interesting than South Bend, Indiana.  These students embrace this opportunity by making new groups of Notre Dame friends and expanding their part of the Notre Dame network (see #85).

When these students return to campus from London, they continuously talk about how awesome London was.  They talk about going to clubs that aren’t named Fever.  They talk about going on weekend trips to Prague and Sweden and about drinking Ice Dragon in their flats.  These students talk incessantly about how awesome their booze cruise was on the River Thames, and they have seemingly added the word cheers to their everyday speech.

These students are able to talk about how awesome London was because they have other people to reminisce about it with.  While students in other abroad programs might have known a handful of other people from Notre Dame at their location, students in The London Program literally come back with new groups of friends who they can discuss their adventures with—and all of their old friends will have to sit through their stories again and again (especially the stories about the booze cruise).

However, students that didn’t study in London will eventually learn that the great thing about all of these stories is that it makes an entire class of students more tightly knit.  The 200 (or so) people that go to London each semester might come back with new friends, but these new friends will be linked with old friends and each class will seemingly become smaller. 

For this reason, the students that didn’t go to London tolerate all of the chatter about London because they will have made new friends because of how awesome London was.  

#70: Switching from Engineering to Business

Notre Dame Students have high expectations.  They expect a lot out of their professors: hoping for slides to be put online and class notes to be printed out.  They expect a lot from their Thursday nights: hoping for plenty of drinking and time to see all of their friends.  They expect a lot from their football team: a national championship or bust.  Most of all, however, Notre Dame Students expect a lot out of themselves.

Expecting a lot from themselves, students enter the University of Notre Dame expecting to participate in difficult and promising majors.  They state their intention to major in Pre-Med or Architecture or Science or Engineering knowing that these majors are complicated, and knowing that their completion will be challenging. 

Soon enough, however, Notre Dame Students will switch their major from Engineering (or a similarly taxing major) to Business (or a similarly less complicated major).

There are many reasons for this traditional switch in major (which usually comes in the second or third semester).  Some of these students had been originally pressured by their parents to do something they don’t want to do (and then rebel, because they are in college).  Many students were led to believe that their strengths were in math and science simply because they were great at these subjects in high school.  Other students simply do not know what they want to do with their life when they are 18 years old.

The most important reason, however, that students change their majors from engineering to business is so that these students have plenty of time to do things that are SO college at night and on the weekends (see #11).  While engineering classes have labs on Friday afternoons (and pre-med classes have their own things to do then), most business classes allow students to have wide open schedules on these Friday afternoons (and for upperclassmen, all of Friday) so that they can start their weekend off right.

Furthermore, the amount of work that business students have (and the level of attentiveness these students need for their classes) allow these students to spend many weeknights doing nothing but watching television and playing drinking games.  Once students realize that these are the things they want to take away from their college experience, they realize that it is time to change majors.

This major switch is exemplified by the science-business and math-business majors that appear for many sophomores.  These majors are briefly declared by many students who believe they need a change, but want to keep up the appearance that they are more academic than their business counterparts.  Usually they hold this distinction over the heads of their business-only friends for a semester or two pretending that they might actually go to med school until they realize the easier work load of a business major is the right way to go, and they declare a business-only major.

Overall, changing from engineering to a business major is one of the most popular major switches at the University of Notre Dame, a switch that is always taken lightly.

#68: ‘Studying’ in LaFortune

When the end of the semester approaches, Notre Dame Students lock down into a study mode that is extraordinary to see.  Many students make their way to the library for the first time all year while some students fail to make it out to the bars for the first weekend all year.  Students that are usually hanging around their dorms watching football games throughout the day are nowhere to be found, and the library is the place to see and be seen.

Notre Dame Students each have their own favorite places to study.  Some go to the basement of the library, or the second floor of the library, or one of the many other floors of the library (the place where actual work gets done).  Some students go to Jordan Hall of Science, others go to study rooms in their dorms, and others go to CoMo.  However, the most inexplicable location where Notre Dame Students study for exams en masse is the LaFortune Student Center.

There are very few sensible reasons why studying in LaFortune is a good idea.  Sure there is the Huddle and other mediocre food options (see #14), there are some tables where people can study in groups, parietals are non-existent so couples can study together, and the obvious fact that Starbucks doesn’t have to be snuck into LaFortune (see #22); but can any real studying actually occur within the walls of this building?

LaFortune is a loud building where lots of things are happening.  In addition to the typical groups of people getting their sandwiches and coffee, Finals week features additional distractions from Zahm guys going on the Bun Run, drunk students that are too good for studying, and even rogue Christmas Carolers spreading holiday cheer.  All these things combine to make LaFortune the worst possible place on campus to study for exams.

That’s why nobody actually studies there.

People might go to LaFortune with all of their books, their class notes, and their laptops.  They might spread all of these things haphazardly across a table to give the appearance that they are doing a lot of work, but ultimately they won’t go 45 seconds without stopping to talk with somebody, or checking their Facebook page, or getting up for more coffee and snacks, or playing online games, or reading blogs like this one.  Going to LaFortune to ‘study’ is nothing more than an exercise in procrastination (see #18).

This is the way Notre Dame Students like it.  They go to LaFortune and put up a facade of studiousness so that they can go back to their dorms or apartments and tell all of their roommates and friends that they, “spent 12 hours studying” when they really accomplished nothing all day.  These students use this ‘studying’ to later justify doing things that are SO college (see #11) like going to bars and/or ugly sweater parties (see #66). 

Not only are these students misleading their friends about their long hours of ‘studying’, but usually they are lying to themselves and believing that they are being productive.  Eventually these students might move to a better location where they will actually get work done; but as long as they remain in LaFortune they are merely keeping up the appearance of hard work.

#58: Going to Appalachia for Fall Break

 At the midpoint of the fall semester, Notre Dame Students get a week off for all of their hard work.  Students use this break to do a variety of things such as relax at home, visit their friends at state schools, work on their thesis and other large projects, interview for jobs, or even to stay at school and drink excessively.  However, the most common thing that Notre Dame Students do with their fall break is go to Appalachia to do service work.

For those who don’t know, Appalachia is a cultural region that stretches across the eastern United States in the Appalachian Mountains.  The residents of Appalachia are widely seen as backward hillbilly types that are incredibly poor and uneducated (shockingly, the only state that is entirely within the Appalachian region is West Virginia).   Because of the poor economic conditions within Appalachia, Notre Dame Students take it upon themselves to make things better in this region by doing all the good work that can possibly be contained within one October week.

Students that go to Appalachia do a variety of things for the people there.  Some students work on construction and home repairs.  Other students work to promote recycling and the importance of organic farming; with further students working on issues ranging from health care to daycare.  Overall, when Notre Dame Students go to Appalachia, they make sure that they do as much good as possible in as little time as possible. 

Depending on the football schedule, Notre Dame Students are able to spend anywhere between 6 and 9 days in Appalachia each fall (and spring as well, if they do not like #11) and these Students need to do their good for several reasons.  Notre Dame Students feel the need to have the most well-rounded transcript and resume as possible.  Some know that their trip to Appalachia will look good on med school applications while others feel like it will be a nice anecdotal story to tell in future job interviews.  Other Notre Dame Students have a desire to prove how righteous they are to their friends and family by spending as much time as possible doing service work (and one week is not enough time to fly to and from Uganda).

At the end of the week, however, Notre Dame Students will return to campus with a good feeling in their heart knowing that they attempted to do good, and if given several more weeks they might have actually made a lasting impact.

#48: Songs that were popular 6-12 months ago

In the hit CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother* one of the main characters (Robin) hails from Canada and must explain to her friends how music trends take longer to make it to Canada.  While this may or may not be true for the country to the north of ours that Notre Dame Students use to exploit more lenient drinking laws (see #34) it is puzzlingly similar to the tastes Notre Dame Students have for music.

Whether they are too busy studying, praying, or watching football games; for some reason it takes Notre Dame Students much longer to find new songs to enjoy than the rest of the country.  While this phenomenon is inexplicable by conventional means, it can be examined by looking at songs that have become popular over the past year. 

For example, Miley Cyrus’s song See You Again was released nearly two years ago, became popular in the Summer of 2008, and has been playing in Notre Dame bars ever since.  While this song is unquestionably a fine choice to play at Finny’s and The Backer; it has worn out its welcome at nearly every other place in the country outside of a Best of Both World’s Concert (or whatever she calls it these days).  However, Notre Dame Students continue to request the song and enjoy it like it is the hip new thing or a treasured classic (something it will never be).

Meanwhile, it’s nearly impossible to spin a radio dial anywhere in the country without hearing the Black Eyed Peas I Gotta Feeling on several stations.  The song has been at or near the top of the charts for over two months yet is still roughly five months away from becoming a staple at bars and dorm parties.  It might be heard occasionally at Notre Dame, but come January it will be ubiquitous.

This trend has been going strong for several years as well.  Previous songs that Notre Dame Students embraced long past their welcome (and still are embracing) include Taylor Swift’s Love Story, Kelly Clarkson’s Since U Been Gone, Fall Out Boy’s Sugar, We Goin Down, and Estelle’s American Boy (feat. Kanye).  While these songs all had their moment for most of the country, that moment was continued far too long for Notre Dame Students.  

*Returns to CBS on Monday, September 21^st at 8:00 ET . . . trust me, just watch it.

#41: Majoring in Political Science Just Because

If there is one major at Notre Dame whose students have a complete lack of focus and direction in this world, it is PLS; but if there is a similar but more popular major, it is Political Science. While PreMed students are preparing for Medical school, business students are preparing to work in the financial industry be unemployed, engineering students are praying that the auto industry doesn’t completely collapse (uh oh), and architecture students are painting things; most Arts and Letters students are preparing for Law School, Grad School, or to do service work. Many Political Science Students, however, don’t necessarily want to do any of these things.

Notre Dame Students love to major in Political Science because they have no better ideas of what they should be majoring in. They take one class with the likes of Christina Wolbrecht or Kier Lieber and figure out that they can easily make it through the major without doing anything that resembles real work; so they sign up.

Many students even pick up Political Science as a second major just because. They might be majoring in Accounting, Spanish, PreMed, or Peace Studies, and realize that they need a second major to satisfy their soul (and to justify their high tuition payments). These students will always name Political Science as their second major because it sounds less rigorous. By referring to Political Science as their second major, these students bring legitimacy and respect to their studies despite the feeling deep down in their hearts that Political Science is more enjoyable.

Conversely, Political Science majors need to pick up second majors to justify these high tuition payments. Oftentimes their parents realize that the major is a joke, or they realize that their job prospects with only Political Science as a major are slim. Such secondary majors include Economics, History, American Studies, and Peace Studies. These majors will help the confused political science major get a job such as a high school teacher . . . or maybe even a Notre Dame Blogger.

Regardless, Political Science majors will never regret their choice of a major because it will allow them plenty of time for things such as drinking . . . and drinking. They might think they learned something about politics, but they will have to get really lucky to become a successful politician like Mark Sanford or John Edwards.

#38.5: Things Saint Mary’s Students Like

1) Calling themselves “Smick Chicks”

2) The Avenue

3) Taking pictures on the “Sluttle”

4) Having Mothers who went to SMC and Fathers who went to Notre Dame

5) Taylor Swift

6) Working in Hospitals or Schools instead of taking classes

7) The Dance Marathon

8) Buying Food at the Cyber Café

9) Paying Their Student Government a Salary

10) Going out on weeknights

11) Oddly Shaped Dining Hall Trays

12) Notre Dame Athletes

13) Obnoxiously big dorm hallways

14) The Keenan Revue (ironically)

15) Getting Hooded

16) Jamaica Shaika

17) Being on Committees

18) Club Fever

19) Complaining about Traffic

20) Most (if not all) of the Things Notre Dame Students Like

#33: Trivia

Notre Dame Students love matching wits with other Notre Dame students.  They start pointless debates in dorms, classrooms, bars, parties, and dining halls that include just about any topic.  Politics, sports, religion, movies, history, literature, music, and television can all provide ample topics for Notre Dame Students to discuss, and they can all provide ample questions for Notre Dame Students to answer.

Because of this, Notre Dame Students love trivia.  They love all kinds of trivia.  Trivia games they can play alone in their free time, such as watching Jeopardy on TV or playing Sporcle.com (see #18) are useful tools to practice, but Notre Dame Students really love the competition.  Some will get this competition amongst their friends by playing trivia games at Buffalo Wild Wings or Trivial Pursuit on a slow night (or to pregame with MD 20/20 shots for each color pie). 

Random campus events that feature trivia will cause Notre Dame Students to come out in droves, and weekly events around campus and South Bend will encourage students to form teams that will battle to prove their wits.  Legend’s and Between the Buns are both popular locations for teams to compete that feature great team names such as Jesse and the Rippers or Drink Drank Drunk, and Notre Dame Students will do their best to win these events as often as possible.

The main reason that Notre Dame Students love trivia, however, is not just because they have an innate desire to compete, but because they want to prove that they are smarter than they next guy.  Through trivia outlets, students are able to prove who has more worthless knowledge in their mind, who reads the most random Wikipedia pages, who is the most in tune with popular culture, and who can form the brightest teams; all important aspects of smartness.  

#29: Telling people when they have an Organic Chemistry Exam

Of all the students and all of the majors at Notre Dame, the most notoriously neurotic are Pre-Meds, and throughout their four years preparing for med school, the most infamous class they must take is Organic Chemistry (commonly referred to as Orgo). 

While Pre-Med students famously bitch and moan about most of their coursework, their whining hits a remarkable high during their sophomore year when they take Orgo.  For an entire year, these students incessantly complain about how difficult the class is and how much studying they have to do for it.  By way of their complaints, these students make it known to the entire Notre Dame community how unrelenting the class is and when the class is giving upcoming exams. 

The level of whining wouldn’t be much of a problem for the rest of the student body if it wasn’t for the Orgo student’s insistence on telling everybody when they have an upcoming test.  An Orgo student would probably never know if their Political Science roommate had an upcoming exam, but this isn’t a two way street.  Days and even weeks before an Orgo test are marred by reminders that the test is coming.  Orgo students will continuously refuse to go out, or even eat meals with other students, and will make sure to use the upcoming Orgo test as their excuse.  

Orgo students mark their territory in the library, some sleep in study rooms; while others even make the crucial error of studying before football games in an attempt to be overly prepared.  The tension in the dorms on the night before an Orgo test is higher than any other night.  While Pre-Meds are tweaked out on Red Bull and RockStar drawing diagrams on whiteboards and spreading papers and textbooks around study rooms, their roommates and friends look for ways to avoid the madness for fear of causing bodily harm to themselves and others. 

Despite the fact that Pre-Meds spend an unnecessary amount of time preparing for Orgo exams, and make sure to let everybody know it; they perform remarkably poorly on said exams.  The students inevitably end up telling all their peers how difficult the class is, and how nobody does well on the tests.  A good percentage of these students take these poor tests as a sign and end up switching to a more reasonable major where students aren’t as psychotic, because as difficult as Pre-Med majors claim that Organic Chemistry is, one year later they will be making similarly apocalyptic claims as they study for the MCATs: a test that makes all students go crazy, even if they don’t take it. 

#22: Sneaking Starbucks Into the Library

While most items on this list pertain to students that spend much their free time in bars or watching football games, many students spend large portions of their time in the library.  Students at Notre Dame like to think of themselves as people who work hard and party hard, and whether this is true or not, they need regular boosts of caffeine to help them study for tests, write papers, and do projects in the floors behind Touchdown Jesus.

In order to fuel themselves through the exams and papers they need to work on, Notre Dame Students (like most college students) typically resort to coffee, and because they care so much about name brands (see #12) they typically get their coffee from the LaFortune Hall Starbucks that is just a short stroll away from the doors to the Library. 

Problems arise, however, because Starbucks coffee is not technically allowed in the library. Students must resort to drastic measures in order to sneak their Starbucks past the Hesburgh Library top notch security team that is manning all entrances to the building (or the only entrance to the building).  Some students smoothly hold their Starbucks at their side where the Coffee-Nazis don’t notice it.  Others take more intense precautions by putting their Starbucks in coat pockets or even balancing it in their backpack.

However they choose to sneak their Starbucks into the library, Notre Dame Students are free to reveal it as soon as they make their way past the security checkpoint.  Once in the basement or second floor, Notre Dame Students can peacefully drink their Starbucks and get down to the task of doin' work . . . or not (see #18).

#18: Finding Inventive Ways to Procrastinate

Just as finals week has descended on the University of Notre Dame, so too have the litany of things that Notre Dame Students do to procrastinate on their work that has been building up all semester.  While there are some students that are focused on the task at hand (premeds), most Notre Dame Students see study days and exam week as a welcome chance to screw around until work really must be done.

One way that students procrastinate is by going to parties and partaking in a variety of drinking themed events during study days (see #11).  These can range from keg races to beer pong tournaments, and are typically widespread during the early study days.  Many students also procrastinate on their work by leaving town to go to the Kentucky Derby; because is there a better way to prepare for exams than by drinking Mint Juleps and betting on horses?

While it is relatively easy for students to find ways to procrastinate during study days, they must pick up their game if they are to not do work during exams week.  Since every student wants to give across the appearance that they are being productive, most students will pack up their books, notes, and laptops and find a spot with all of their friends on the second floor of the library.  After taking everything out of their backpack and spreading books and notes across a table or desk, Notre Dame Students will then take out their laptops and let the real procrastination begin.

Notre Dame Students have become adept at finding online diversions that will keep them occupied while giving off the appearance that work is being done.  They will update their facebook status religiously making sure that everybody knows how many exams they still have, and how many hours it is until they are DONE.  They will play games such as Family Feud, Funny Farm, and Sporcle; and they will learn more than they did during any class throughout the semester.  

Notre Dame Students will also read.  They will read more articles on ESPN.com than they did during the rest of the semester combined.  They will read message boards on Rivals and ND Nation (see #8), and they will find obscure blogs to pass the time.  However, the pinnacle of Notre Dame Student procrastination is when a student begins to follow Charlie Weis’s Twitter *.  When this happens, they have truly decided to phone in their exams.

*Exception: This is assuming that said Notre Dame Students do not attempt to start their own obscure blog during the final weeks of the semester.  This would truly be the most inventive way to procrastinate on work.

#15: Professor McKenna

There are many professors that Notre Dame Students find tolerable, and many professors that students enjoy class with, but no professor at the University is more beloved than Professor James McKenna of the Anthropology and Tap Dancing departments.  Many students are first introduced to Professor McKenna their freshmen year when he teaches very large Intro to Anthropology classes.  Some students are later introduced to the man through Intro to Human Ethology courses that they take only because he is the professor of them. 

However, Professor McKenna is most famous for his Introduction to Tap Dancing course that many seniors take on their way out.  The students take the tap dancing class just to have fun, but most would not be in the class if it wasn’t for their love of Professor McKenna.  Many of the students previously had the professor in a course, and those who hadn’t have heard about his awesomeness from their friends.  Even if they have no interest in actually learning how to tap dance, some students will take the course just so they are able to take a class with Professor McKenna.

Professor McKenna is the rare man that can make the idea of mothers sleeping with a baby during infancy interesting to a group of 19-22 year old men.  He is the rare man that can get most college students interested in learning the Baby Jig and the Soft Shoe, he is the rare man that will perfectly dance to Single Ladies, and he is the rare man who calls his students his friends.  Professor McKenna is one of the rare professors that Notre Dame Students would love to have a drink with, and he is the rare professor that every student has heard of and every student loves.