Chapter 283: A New Academic Year: Full-Time OSU, 12th Grade, My Poor Car

Monday, September 26 to the end of 2005

Things are always messy at the beginning of a new school year, although much was done to make it easier for me. The Dean of OSU's watchword regarding me seemed to be "efficiency". He'd arranged (or more likely, arranged for one of his secretaries to arrange) many ways to make things flow easier for me. As a few examples:

• Unknown to me, the Dean, the Corvallis Board of Education and the Principal of my school had been talking about me behind my back, something the Dean had initiated. They were determined that I was going be given every opportunity to perform to the limit of my intellectual abilities. The Principal was made to understand that problems at school wouldn't be treated with much patience.

• Unlike most students, I didn't have to fight my way around the college bookshop to collect my textbooks, not that I could've carried more than a tiny fraction of them. They were gathered for me. And if in doubt whether I'd be doing a specific course or not, the textbook was gathered anyway, rather than risk me going without. Some courses had multiple textbooks, so there were over two hundred of them! It took several people quite a while to collect them, transport them to my home, and shelve them in good order in my study.

• On the first day of college, I was met by a Physics Department guide who took me everywhere I needed to go. I was shown the lecture halls, labs, resource rooms (computers, libraries) that I might use and how to use them. I was introduced to everyone relevant to my studies, with - I was amused to note - the Physics Department secretaries being right at the top of the "Essential People To Meet" list. The secretaries knew about me. If anything needed to be done, they were either going to be the ones doing it, or would be making sure the process of getting it done worked efficiently. Bureaucracy barely came near me; sometimes I had to sign completed forms, but that was about it. After I knew my way around the Physics Department, I was handed off to a Business Studies guide, and the process was repeated.

School wasn't organized for my convenience nearly so well (to be fair, my future marketing value for my school was negligible), but things were made easier. I didn't have to worry about any of my elective classes being full, both Math and Physics were waived provided I did well with them at College, and a little study area was set up for me in the library; not large enough or private enough for a bed, unfortunately. [A month later I wanted to start using an internet-accessing laptop at school, piggybacking off the school's wifi.]

I'd known what I would be facing at school, so it was straightforward other than the considerable amount of social confusion caused by soccer players possibly being cool.

At OSU, I'd been vaguely hoping that only the staff would know about me. I'd have preferred to go unnoticed by the other students, much as had happened with the two courses I'd done last year. I'd thought that would've been fairly easy, because I'd so rarely be in their classes. But the way I was escorted around, introduced, and the reactions of the lecturers, all conspired to draw attention to me.

Julia would've been happy to see it, and I wasn't frightened by it, but I would've preferred for it not to happen. I had a momentary thought that I should've asked the Dean for anonymity or a low-key approach, but I realized that was never possible. With nearly a hundred lecturers having to do a great deal of extra work for me, all the office staff, Heads of Department, and doubtless many others having to know about me in order to make it possible for me to study so fast, word wasn't so much "certain to get out," as already out. I did my best to deflect the students' curiosity as I didn't want to get socially involved at OSU. There was plenty of that in school, and it included Julia, Carol and Ava, which was perfect in many ways.

I was ready for the exams in twenty four courses. Most were Math, some Physics, and a few Business. Several Math exams went ahead almost immediately, as it'd been easy for those lecturers to build new exams for me, cobbled together from previous years' courses, with changes to the values of variables to require different answers. About half the Physics courses that I'd finished reading required some lab work, so the first few weeks of the academic year had me very busy at OSU, doing exams, lab work, then more exams. Just the exams took over sixty hours.

Fortunately, the lab work was all one-on-one, usually with a teacher's assistant, so I got through it pretty fast.

School classes were just the same old, slow-paced routine, so missing even whole days of classes didn't matter much. With the slow pace and my doing only three-quarters of a grade (no Math or Physics) made catching up fairly easy. Obviously all my teachers were very helpful, and I had a designated note-taker and a backup in every class, usually Ava or one of my soccer teammates. It was not humanly possible for anyone to be more helpful than my teammates were.

I slaughtered OSU's exams right from the get go. I'd never had any doubt about that. I knew that I knew the material, and exam nerves were never a concern. It was good that it only took a few days before my supporters, especially Prof, stopped worrying about having their necks extended so far for me.

It was in the Business faculty that I had the most interaction with the other students, as it required a lot of group work. So many of its courses required so much group work that it was quite a pain. It was ironic that Business was the least efficient degree for me, given how businesses are always going on about the need to be efficient. For Math and Physics my usual approach would be as it'd been over summer, I'd start reading their courses on a screen each, and about two weeks later I'd have finished them. Normally I'd take the exams almost immediately, presuming the lecturer had written it already, and that any lab work was up to date, which it should be as I could usually fit it in during the two weeks the course took.

That process didn't work with many of the Business courses because most of them required group work, usually having three or four "projects" (in school we called them "assignments") over the course of the course, of course (ok, I'll admit the "of course" was unnecessary, but I couldn't resist it. Why on Earth does English have the same word with different meanings? You don't get mathematicians giving different values to the same numeral! That'd be crazy). In some cases the lecturers agreed to let me do some of the group projects by myself, but for most of the projects it was important for me to do them as part of my study group because that's how they taught leadership and other people-dependent business skills, or simply because the projects were far too large to be done by one person.

Because I had to do the projects with other students, I had to wait for the class to get to that point, so the obvious solution was for me to do the courses in real-time. In itself that was fine, because there were PLENTY of other courses I could read while waiting for a course to progress toward its next group project. But I couldn't wait until the end of the year to finish the first year courses, because I needed the knowledge to do the second, third and fourth year courses.

So I was back to Plan A with the Business courses. I'd study each of them as fast as I could by reading all of last year's notes, then I'd put the course on hold, waiting for their next group project. During that time I'd occasionally check for any new material the lecturer had added into this year's online notes. They tended to do that quite often in the BBA because they like to use current business news. Only after each course's final group project was finished would I take its exam. Very unlike Math, the final grade for Business courses was often something like 50% exam, 50% project work, so doing the projects well was important. I'd be doing later years' courses before I'd taken the exams for half of the earlier years' courses, but there wasn't much choice. The Head of the Business College stopped worrying about that after she got the result of my first three Business exams (I'd studied three suitable Business courses over summer).

As a result of issues like lab work and group projects, Math was the degree most suitable for studying from last year's notes, less so for Physics, and much less so for Business, so that was going to be the order I did the degrees in. It was far too messy to be a purely sequential process, but I'd be completing more Math courses earlier, and Business courses later.

Then there were the BCC courses. They were much more of a nuisance. Public Speaking and Interpersonal Communication, for example, didn't exactly lend themselves to purely online study. I'd also hoped that Lifetime Fitness for Health and Lifetime Fitness: Running would be credited to me when they saw my body and learned about my 10k running race win, but no such luck. Apparently they actually wanted the students to learn stuff, rather than just flex their muscles or run a few circles. I must admit that if they'd given me college credits just because I'd previously demonstrated an ability to run in circles quickly, I wouldn't have been able to resist making some sarcastic comments.

All in all, OSU kept me very busy for the first month, as it took me about three weeks to do the lab work and take the exams for the courses I'd studied over summer, by which time I had half a dozen more courses ready to be examined, and by the time I'd finished those exams, I had another half a dozen (it felt like Achilles and the Tortoise). It took me a full month to catch the Tortoise - to clear the entire backlog and be as current as possible. Thereafter, every couple of weeks I'd spend a couple of days at OSU taking exams, and I probably had to spend at least one full day a week there doing labwork.

^

For each Business course I was in that had group work, (pretty much all of them now that I'd done the three that didn't need it over summer), I had to be put in a study group, usually of four to six people. However it was that students were normally allocated to study groups wasn't what happened for me. In the interests of my efficiency, the Head of the Business College turned up at the very beginning of the first lecture for a first year's course (she did the same for the first scheduled second-year course too). She gave the lecturer a list of course names to write on the board, which were the first (or second) year courses that I was doing that had group projects.

The DH (stands for "Department Head", but I'm including the Business College head in the acronym) introduced herself. She impressed on the students how unusual it was for her to come to such a class, then said, "Normally you're placed in study groups randomly. This year we'll be doing that after one special study group is chosen. Membership in it has two criteria: you must be enrolled in all the courses written on the board, and you must be EXTREMELY efficient, meaning NEVER late to meetings, ALWAYS fulfill your obligations on or ahead of time, hardworking, producing good quality work, etc. Membership in this study group will require that you maintain that efficiency all year and in all your courses, because you'll remain in this group in all your courses, not just this one.

^-- "I'll be choosing four of you, to join a fifth person who is not here today. He is a very special student, a prodigy who is taking on a very heavy workload. His time is too valuable to be wasted by tardy study group members, so being in his group will be a considerable commitment for you. Working with him will also likely be an experience of a lifetime. Those of you who meet the criteria and wish to be considered, come to the front."

Both times the DH did this, there were class members who objected to the implied elitism (or favoritism, or whatever -ism they thought it was). The DH wasn't interested, "If you don't like it, don't volunteer. If others want to, that's their choice."

The first criterion (being in the listed classes) was met by almost everyone, as there's very little choice in the BBA's first and second years. Mostly it eliminated part-time students, of which there are quite a few in the BBA. The second criterion was considerably more effective at limiting the field. Having just finished three months of laid-back vacation, most of the students didn't want to contemplate taking on what sounded like hard work in every course for the rest of the year. Quite a few were willing to though.

The DH got them to line up at the front of the class, then went down the line rejecting most of them. She refused to state her criteria, except in one guy's case. He'd arrived to class while the DH had been talking, so demonstrably failed the "NEVER late" criterion, something the DH used to drill the point home even stronger. Her unvoiced criterion was tidiness: scruffy looking students were rejected as an indication of the wrong personality type. Then she went down the remaining line, asking the students for their names to look up the summary of their academic record she had with her.

She picked a set (for each year) of four extremely smart, willing to work hard, tidy (and therefore mostly female), study group members for me.

The DH then said, "By the end of the lecture, pick one of you to serve as your go between with Mark. That person is to collect all your contact details, identify his- or herself, and state what lunchtimes this week all of you will be available to meet Mark. Give it to your lecturer to email to him. Do you have any questions?"

"WHO is he?"

"He'll introduce himself to you at the first lunchtime meeting."

Things like the above didn't make it easy for me to keep a low profile.

When I did meet my study groups one day, between exams, I tried to be low key, just saying that I was working on three degrees simultaneously, not telling them that I was doing them any faster than normal. That impressed them more than enough.

One of them later remembered my name being associated with the Binion's Casino Kidnapping Case. A quick google found them a photo of me, which confirmed that I was he. So that got added to my reputation, together with my age.

After the first study group meeting at my house (it was more efficient for them to come to me), my being rich and having the most extreme home computer system they'd ever seen got added to my reputation. As did God knows what sort of impression after Julia seized upon the opportunity to impress my college friends, by 'coincidentally' (cough, cough), having several of my girlfriends there at the time, all of whom introduced themselves one after the other as "one of Mark's girlfriends," although Alexis specified "lovers". My study group's reactions gave Julia the opportunity to explain how wonderful I was.

By the time my study group had met me a few times, had seen how much and how quickly I could work, and had gossiped about me with the rest of the class, they were all fascinated by me. I was the instant center of everyone's attention the moment I walked in the door to participate in my first group presentation, they being a common part of the BBA.

My keeping quiet about my trying to complete the three degrees in one year didn't stay unknown by the masses for long, as the lecturer said, "Ahh, Mr. Anderson. Good to finally see you. I've been saving something I wanted to say to everyone until you were here. Every year I get countless requests for extensions because the students claim to be too busy working on assignments for other courses. If Mr. Anderson can manage his workload, the rest of you don't have a leg to stand on. Put up your hand if you're doing fifteen or more courses this year."

About twelve is normal, but quite a few hands went up.

"Mr. Anderson, your hand isn't up."

"Ahh, if this is going the way I expect, my arm would get too tired."

"I'll put my hand up as your proxy then." He put it up, then addressed the class again, "Put your hand down if you're not doing at least eighteen courses this year."

Most hands dropped, leaving just a few still up, which caused several expressions of amazement, sympathy, and "Thank God I'm not." The lecturer's hand remained held high.

He raised the bar, "At least twenty courses?"

Every hand except his came down. He waved it to make sure I was embarrassed as much as possible.

"At least thirty courses." He waved his hand high in the air.

"At least forty courses." Wave.

"At least fifty courses." Wave.

By now the students were looking at me with a wide variety of expressions on their faces, mainly: disbelief and you're-a-freak.

The lecturer asked, "How many courses are you doing this year, Mark?"

"Um, it seems like all of them, I think," hoping to get away with being vague.

"I'm told it'll be 120."

The class thought that was an interesting number, and several of them were unable to stop themselves from commenting on it. There were three opinions held throughout the class: I was a freak, this was a bizarrely stupid joke, or this wasn't even a joke because it was too ridiculous.