The Education Life section of the New York Times website features several columns written by students about their college experiences. One of the students whose column is featured is Brown senior Matthew Scult. Matthew's piece is about the semester he took organic chemistry, the universally evil class that results in thousands of changes in major every year. However, this column isn't about Matthew's perseverance or self-discovery in his semester of orgo. He is neither a pre-med student nor a chemistry major. Whereas everyone else who enrolls in organic chemistry does it because they have to, Matthew Scult took the course for the hell of it. If this seems like an attention-seeking thing for a student to do, that's because it is.

Matthew writes about how he took the class all the way to the end, despite advice from all sides to drop it, and eventually failed in a blaze of glory.

The test was handed out, and the furious scribbling began. I slowly flipped through the 15-page exam, answering the two questions I knew, guessing on another and staring blankly at the rest. After about 15 minutes, I stood up and walked over to the T.A. at the front of the room. I said, “Thanks, I’m all set,” and handed him my exam.

Then 400 eyes turned to follow me as I walked out the door — and into the bright sunshine.

Odds are even money that he spent most of the rest of the day thinking about how he would write about taking the test in his submission to the New York Times.

Matthew's column may be slightly irritating to say the least. But for one Yale student (who will remain anonymous), it was the equivalent of slapping Jesus or saying non-complimentary things about Bill Simmons. This Eli expressed his out-of-proportion, boiling anger at this column in a mostly-caps locked e-mail--reproduced in pertinent part after the jump--sent to a Brown student friend of his. Read the rest of this entry »