Many years ago, I wrote an item about improving the quality of higher education by introducing a new major into the traditional curricula of colleges and universities. What follows is an update on that proposal.
From my years in the field of academe, observing the courses offered, I venture forth to suggest a means of filling in what to me is a blatant gap. I would designate the new course of study, Basic Trivialogy, which would afford students the opportunity to expand their intake of knowledge exponentially.
The basic course in the new regime would be Trivialogy 101, which would serve as a first step towards the forthcoming major. It would orient the students to the glories of learning trivia in an academic setting. Students would be able to experience the thrill of learning details far beyond that which seems to be offered in most courses.
After mastering that initial salvo into the world of trivia, the follow-up course would be Minutia 201. There the professors would buckle down to instructing the students in the higher reaches of trivia. Such a course would be more challenging and it would equip the class to advance on to the next level, which would be termed Pedantry 301.
In that arena, obsession with specifics would rule the day. In addition, only gifted students with both high IQs and boundless energy could get through the grind of the course load. As graduation drew near, the final leg of the course syllabus would entail the students having to overcome the threats posed by AI, showing that the human mind could outreach the scope of AI. Here it would require a bit of gerrymandering to trick AI into thinking that human intelligence was superior to robotic gibberish.
A sure way to inculcate the thrill of learning among the student body would be to introduce an event similar to a spelling bee, which might be termed a Trivia Bee, in which the students would compete for prizes and awards that later could prove to be beneficial for admission to courses of further study. The Bee would be a good way for the professors to ascertain publicly the relative merits of the aspiring students.
As the students were approaching graduation, they would face the critical choice of deciding whether to go into the practical or the theoretical career path. Those who opted for the practical would become certified trivialogists, out there in the workplace, apart from the confines of academe, making a living by offering their services at an hourly rate to give the public the benefits of their long course of study.
Those students who chose the theoretical program would become trivialogians. They would live in their ivory towers apart from the world of reality, contemplating the mysteries of the universe while learning how to express them in trivialogical terms. These folks would need to be reminded to eat their meals and should be cautioned not to drive vehicles.
Their minds would be so preoccupied by the concepts associated with their profession, planning new curricula for aspiring students, and writing scholarly publications about their latest musings about the nature of trivia, that they truly would be akin to living on another planet. Their social peers would be fellow academicians equally engrossed in the dynamics of trivia.
An academic major of such significance would deserve its own motto. I suggest the Latin, “Trivia est omnia,” which freely translated means, “Trivia is everything.” The adoption of such a phrase would elevate the discipline to a higher plateau of study.
Upon reflection and now at the end of the item, I am realizing that perhaps my proposal for this new course of study might be too late, somewhat in the manner of reinventing the wheel, or noting that the horse already has left the barn. Being original is not an easy task.
