So, as usual, I coughed up $1.00 for my alma mater. And yesterday after checking my mail I discovered that they'd sent me a letter thanking me.

Included in the envelope was a small sticker, a form letter, and a personal letter from a student in the class of '09. Already annoyed that they'd wasted my $1.00 thanking me, I began to peruse the '09er letter. That's when I got really angry.

Essentially, the guy writing the letter is a freshman from Dalton, Massachusetts. That's fine, but hardly the sort of thing I'd want to read about even if I had given a large amount of money. He wants to be a political science/economics double major, which was also boring to me. By the time I made it through his favorite class (microeconomics) I was almost comatose. Then I hit his "dreams" and encountered a tiny nugget of gold: he wishes, after graduation, to become an investment banker.

Huzzah!

My school may have an image problem, and letters like this certainly aren't helping matters. A frosh who wants to become an i-banker? That's sick. He shouldn't have sold out so early. Freshman year is for legions of students to learn they aren't pre-med material. It's for people to take-up and later drop crew. It's for many crazy parties. It's not for people who seek to become i-bankers.

It almost made me want to give them 50 cents next year. Then we'll see who's laughing. At least I can take comfort that my fellow double-ohs are the stingiest class ever. Wonder why? Well, it's probably letters like these.