ASU - It's All BS

For reasons that were never made clear to me, the Philosophy department offered a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) rather than the more obvious Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree. While the department didn't seem to much care what classes I took, the college expected me to take at least one science class. I thought I had taken care of this with a Meteorology class in which I had learned that I will never understand how to calculate the dew point. This turned out to not be sufficient ... perhaps because I still couldn't calculate the dew point.

After almost dropping out after my junior year, I decided not to kill myself with a heavy class load and gave myself a 5th year to get the credits I needed to graduate. As my 5th year was coming to a close, everything was falling into place except for that science requirement.  At this point I turned to Dean S__, my favorite history professor, for help. The reason he was my favorite history professor, besides being a great guy and the kind of lecturer, like Dr. A____ , who could really work a 400 seat lecture hall and make you feel like you should stand up and clap at the end of the hour, the real reason was that he let me get away with researching the international cartel aspect of Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow and turn it into a paper for one of his classes. (As near as I could tell, everything in the book is true.)

Together, we concocted a plot to sell the organic gardening class I had taken in the Agriculture College as being worthy of a science credit. 

As a state university, ASU had a school farm (at that time) and I had taken an organic gardening class one year. We eventually grew some food and I learned that I don't actually hate peas, just canned peas, and that turnips right out of the ground are a whole different experience.

(Besides taking classes in the Agriculture and Architecture Schools, I had also taken a Home Economics decorating class where, as one of the rare males, I was treated like a visiting prince. I wanted to take cooking classes but they were scheduled in such a way that you couldn't really take anything else at the same time. I guess they didn't want their Home Economics students to get confused by fancy book learnin'.)

We wrote up an account of what was literally bull (well, steer) shit washing to make it sound as scientific as possible. It worked. Not only did I get my B.S. degree, but I maintain that I am really the only one who deserves this degree since I got it by B.S.ing the college about shoveling shit.