Near the end of senior year, my advisor asked what I planned to do after graduation.

“Maybe the Peace Corps?” I said timidly.

He tried not to laugh. “I’m not sure your classics background would benefit the people of third-world countries.”

I felt a little relieved, because I don’t even like camping.

Then my advisor got down to business. “Are you aware that you need two more core courses to graduate?”

So that was the problem. ” I’m sticking around this summer. And I’m taking German, too, so I don’t go mad.”

Most students at the university hustle to get the core classes out of the way. I excelled in two subjects, and one might argue that they are the same subject: languages and literature. But I was not crazy about taking any class with the suffix “-ology.” My solution was to sign up for more languages and literature and hope no one noticed. Damn it!

Freshman year, I fulfilled the Social Science requirement: Anthropology and Psychology. Good God, if they could have made it more boring, I don’t know how. A friend and I stayed up all night before the psychology exam frantically reading the textbook (sometimes we just highlighted and took nothing in) and the Lecture Notes we had bought at the Student Union. We passed, but how? And the science class is a blur – perhaps it was called: Physics Lite?

But it was all worth it for the the “Culture” core requirement: I was enraptured by two semesters of Drama in Western Culture. Reading plays on the page has a special virtue if you don’t live in a city where there is “real” theater. We started with Greek tragedy and ended with Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

And I adored the two kind T.A.’s who ran the discussion group: Leon was the co-founder of a whimsical comedy group, and Jan later founded The Haunted Bookshop, a used bookshop, in her home. (The shop has new owners.)

But back to that last semester senior year: I still needed a gym class, or was it called P.E.? And a science -ology class.

“I wonder,” I said, “if for gym I could do a study of whether women’s attitudes towards sports are changing. Are we taking over men’s sports or are we still rebelling against pointless, violent games?”

Did my advisor gasp at my genius? He was tactful. “That might be a controversial Women’s Studies thesis, but not, I fear, P.E.”

And so I timidly signed up for Archery (I was under the influence of Daniel Deronda) and an -ology class.. In spite of gym and -ology, I graduated with honors. And then on to graduate school – which was far less cozy – did I even have an advisor? But the experience was worth it.

Anyway, I appreciated my undergrad advisor. Today I read his obituary and moaned, “How can you be dead? You were the wittiest and best!”

And he really was. Ave atque vale…