English Major In Shambles: To Make Students Read Again, College Asks Consulting Interns For Expert Counsel

In a recent Haybale polling, students at the College reported reading less than ever before. 

Professor Babe McDeedy in the English Department commented on the evolution of students’ reading habits during his tenure at the College: “Seminars have definitely become more dull. Even though I’ve been assigning less reading, students still do the work with the same amount of carelessness. Students simply don’t pay attention anymore.

“I have no idea what to do. I’m at a loss for words. And I’m literally an English professor!”

Our team at the Haybale simply could not stand for this, because if Professor McDeedy is at a loss for words, how could we ever continue writing in good conscience! We brought the situation directly to President Maud, who then asked for input from the brightest Williams students: summer interns at Bain, McKinsey, and BCG. 

The solution, according to consultants at Bain, is to scrap not only physical books, but written thoughts altogether. English professors should instead assign TikToks and TikTok comment sections in order for students to learn to evaluate discourse in our digital age. This will also prepare students for the only arguments anyone really needs in the “real world” — gaslighting strangers about the Bill of Rights in comment sections.  

In an Instagram direct message, Political Science Professor Dustin Eagle said, “This is the perfect way for higher education to remain relevant in the digital age: TikToks are the future of political dissent.”

However, summer interns from Boston Consulting Group, Inc., advised the College that they may have jumped out of the frying pan and landed ass-first in the fire. 

“TikToks are a thing of the past,” BCG summer intern Upa Eastside ’31 (he got started early) told reporters from the Haybale. “Students don’t have the attention span for them anymore. Two-times speed, three-times speed, it’s just not cutting it! There’s only so fast you can go!”

Instead, Eastside and other BCG interns advised the College to ditch the clunky, overdemanding, intellectualized slog of watching TikToks, and embrace the future: feeding course-assigned TikToks and comment sections into ChatGPT for a custom AI-generated summary. But because, of course, words on a page are “a thing of the past too,” BCG suggested then generating convenient TikTok read-aloud summaries of the ChatGPT summaries, followed by ChatGPT summaries of the TikTok summaries, in an infinite loop that may or may not destroy space-time as we know it (while guzzling up a couple powergrids sloppy-style in the meantime too).

However, summer interns from McKinsey, in typical McKinsey style, disagreed with BCG and instead proposed simply firing all instructors to “cut costs and increase profits. Layoffs never lose!” The interviewed consultant simply gave us the middle finger, kicked us in the balls (even the ball-less among us, somehow), and ran away in five seconds flat.

President Mandel plans to hold student discussion groups to identify best practices for the future: the Board Of Overachieving Best Students (BOOBS). The group plans to meet the next time Mercury is in retrograde and will only use I-statements so that, should things go south, they can take the blame for ruining Williams College forever.