At Chapel last Thursday, Bill Cook ‘66, who is filling in at Wabash this year as a professor in the Religion Department, gave a rousing talk about how to find happiness at Wabash. He focused on seven specific steps:
- Find mentors or teachers who’ll be your principal educators.
- Find some specific educational experiences outside your major and minor.
- Make some of the greatest friends of your life.
- Have good times – that you remember.
- Keep connected to the world beyond Wabash.
- Don’t take summers off – do something interesting.
- Learn how to sing.
Interspersed between these points, Cook offered anecdotes and lessons from his own experiences. Remarking on an interaction he had with legendary Classics professor John Fisher, Cook said,
“John Fisher gave me two things no one ever gave me before or since – an artichoke and an F-plus. He made me eat the artichoke before another bite of food. And he told me the F-plus wasn’t just failure, it was an insult.”
What is the number one piece of advice you would give to current Wabash men on finding bliss? Let us know in the comments.
Number one piece of advice for finding bliss at Wabash is simple really. Don’t let your living unit hold you back from hanging out with other guys. As a senior I lived with 3 Delts, I ate lunch everyday at the TKE house, I hung out and did homework with three or four guys from the Sigma Chi house, I visited Brickman and Sostak at the Phi Psi house, I enjoyed an occasional adult beverage with Smitka and Maddox at Phi Delt and with Peter Joslyn in Kappa Sigma, I played games with guys in college hall and rugby with half the Beta house and of course I was a brother of Lambda Chi Alpha. Don’t be afraid to make friends, you’ll find they’re for life. (Or in the case of Alex Goga (TKE) he married my first cousin, and so now he really is part of the family, and we’re proud to have him!)
Oh my, that is a great quote!!! I’ll always love that guy.