BY ENDER O. PI

After a survey at Caltech found over 55% of undergrads felt their weakest quality was “social skills,” the Caltech administration has decided to add a new course on “basic social skills, small talk, and effective language use in social contexts.” The new course, E0, is intended to introduce prefrosh to a rigorous, scientific manner of communicating SAT scores.

E0 includes such topics as proper levels of eye contact, how to curb over- and under-gesticulation, and how to quickly pronounce “Well, I got a 1580 on the SAT” so that it rolls fluidly off the tongue. E0 will also cover subjects such as: analyzing whether that person is waving at you or the person behind you; when to tell your new frosh camp-friend that you don’t know their name; and when to mention you got a 1590 on the SAT.

Dr. Randy Johnson, Hixon Speaking Specialist, commented via email:

We have to find a way to help students unlearn the simplistic version of socialization they gain in high school, like making friends, and being nice to people, even if they got a higher SAT score than you. It’s, frankly, all wrong. For example, you might want to know how to change your language depending on who you’re speaking to. With some exceptions, you’ll want to prevaricate extensively with confusing or just meaningless jargon with your ‘friends’, with ‘words’ like ansciotous particle, michrodiasm, or even chaincurring greedy-learning algorithms. Please, don’t do this with people who actually know what they’re talking about, such as your professors. These are things we’ll cover in E0.

Finally, E0 will teach advanced topics as how often to use anfractuous, convoluted wording to remind everyone how Darn Smart you are; and how to seamlessly weave in the absolute fact that you got a 1600 on the SAT, and that you also definitely got accepted to MIT but chose to go to the clearly superior school, Caltech, by your own free will, not because you had to, because you got into MIT, for sure. Duh.

A supplementary class, E1, is in the works. The class title is “Speaking to The Fairer Sex: How to Make 45:55 feel like 55:45.” A further description and syllabus are pending.