You're sitting in your introductory Economics lecture, the professor is discussing in very intricate depth how spectacular the course is, and 140 Lorch is hot and stifling (get used to it). You check your watch. It's 11:25. Your next class is immediately after this lecture, and it's an amazing seminar that you're dying to get to. But your schedule says it's at 11:30!
You start fidgeting, wondering when this class is going to be over. It's 11:28. There's no way you're going to make it to Mason Hall in two minutes. 11:29. All right, lecture's over, you grab your bag and run out the door in a stampede of your peers, all trying to exit the hall.
As you're running up to Mason at full sprint, you check your watch again. 11:32. Damn, you're late, and on your very first day, too! You know the professor is going to hate you because you're not punctual, and that everyone will make fun of you for being late. What was that Econ professor thinking, not letting you out earlier to give you time to get to your next class?! This isn't high school, after all, when you can get from point A to point B in less than one minute!
You bound up the stairs, dash to your classroom (at least you scoped out where all your classes are going to be ahead of time), slam the door open, and...there are only two students in the room, both looking at you in a most perplexed manner. You check your watch. 11:34. You wonder whether you're in the right room, you frantically look around.
The guy with long hair, in a raggedy Che Guevara shirt, cargo shorts and blue glasses looks at you with a smirk. "You're a freshman, aren't you?"
You respond, trying to catch your breath: "How'd you know?"
He answers: "You're early, but you think you're late."
As you try to decipher the hippie's gnomic message, the door opens, and a few more students walk in, carrying their bags, followed by the professor. The professor looks at you, noticing your disheveled hair and red face, and chuckles. "You're a freshman, aren't you?"
Don't be that freshman! Here at the U of M, there's a handy little thing called Michigan Time. Your class ends at 11:30, your next class is actually supposed to start at 11:30 but begins at 11:40. It gets better, though. It's like that for all your classes. Michigan time makes life easier, right?
The University knows that most students attending haven't yet learned how to teleport, and walking from Lorch Hall to Mason can take a few minutes, so whilst your schedule will list your classes starting at a certain time, in reality, they start 10 minutes after what it says there. Seriously.
Ten minutes is more than enough time to get to most any destination on Central Campus from any other destination on Central Campus. You don't even have to run. Unless you get one of those professors who loves to talk so much that they forget what time class ends. Some don't care. But we'll let you figure those out along the way.
Be the first to comment on this article!