Love Scarlet’s look on her face. I can mentally hear the sound of a needle scratching across a record to go with that look.
Scar can go to M.I.T. with the M.I.B. can’t you SEE?
Needle scratching across record, while the fully-loaded Greyhound bus slams on its brakes with a screech as the driver screams “NoNoNoNoNoStopStoppppp!”
It isn’t just us readers that Paul tosses around with these bootlegger turns 🙂
As a European, I always wonder about the American system of tuition fees – I also never actually had to look into it, all I know is that it’s bloody costly.
So, apparently when you pay for the school, it’s not a package deal, you have to purchase the individual courses? Do different courses have different prices then?
Like “I only have money to learn art history this semester”?
That can happen, but usually it’s so much a credit-hour, so if you take 16 credit hours you will pay twice as much as someone who only takes 8. Of course, 8 is generally not enough to be a full-time student, so that may be billed at a higher rate.
The last I knew, 12 to 15 credit-hours was considered a full-time student.
As FreeFlyer said, it’s often based on the number of credit hours. Some classes may have additional fees attached, often for materials or the use of labs or special equipment.
Then, of course, there’s the cost of books, which is often quite a racket. Professors sometimes specify the required use of a book which is updated every year, so you have to buy the latest edition from the college book$tore, and at the end of the year its resale value is effectively zero because this edition will be obsolete before the next class arrives.
I was lucky… my father (and a small scholarship) covered my course fees, so I never had to make that sort of “can I take all of the courses I should, this quarter?” decision.
I was working nearly full-time at student wages to pay my room and board, though, so sometimes I had to decide things like “Can I afford to buy a record album this week, or would I rather eat?”
It was all well worth it in the end, I’m glad I did it, but I don’t miss it.
I flunked out of college and ended up in the publishing gulag. I appreciated the textbook racket a lot better later when they underpaid me to copyedit them. Gotta pay the editors and typesetters, folks! 🙂
Other students: Man it must be nice to be an art major! You don’t have all those textbooks to buy!
Me, holding my Art History textbook and hundreds of dollars worth of art supplies: Yeah, it’s great. 😕
Thanks y’all for clearing that up! I went to uni in Hungary, there you can try to go for the state-funded places in each year (40-60% of the seats, I think, entry depends on your academic score), if you get that, you have a free ride if you manage to finish in a normal timeframe (2-3 years for Bachelor, and then if you get to Master, another 2 years typically). But you have to enter a specific field of study already at application. There’s usually some chance to enter some courses from other fields, but it’s limited.
Also…it may not fit the career path she sees herself on, may be a stumbling block. They can get her a degree, they can give her a job, but will it get her, say, respect from her colleagues? “Oh, that’s Professor Duncan. She never publishes. I don’t know how she got tenure.”
Considering the trash that gets published that’s not much of a putdown.
In fact not having to publish and keeping with or ahead of the game would be an object of pure envy.
And that’s not including her fine tail.
Scarlet:
Admired by paranormal community – check
Admired by leaders of one of the world’s most powerful organizations – check
Has the full support of the above – check
Has adorable and understanding boyfriend – check
Has a choice: work on top secret world destroying science or gain recognition within the paranormal science community – well, many human scientists and cryptographers, make that same decision daily.
Well, don’t that take the wind out of her sales.
I still don’t know whether she wants to have anything to do with the MIBs or not, though.
You had me at “Full Ride.”
At least she didn’t have the chance to insert both feet into her mouth . . . Averted a major disaster there . . .
Love Scarlet’s look on her face. I can mentally hear the sound of a needle scratching across a record to go with that look.
Scar can go to M.I.T. with the M.I.B. can’t you SEE?
Needle scratching across record, while the fully-loaded Greyhound bus slams on its brakes with a screech as the driver screams “NoNoNoNoNoStopStoppppp!”
It isn’t just us readers that Paul tosses around with these bootlegger turns 🙂
Small misspelling of “our” after “guidance” in the last panel. That aside, LOL! Love these twists.
Must’ve been in the fine print that she missed reading… yeah… fine print…
As a European, I always wonder about the American system of tuition fees – I also never actually had to look into it, all I know is that it’s bloody costly.
So, apparently when you pay for the school, it’s not a package deal, you have to purchase the individual courses? Do different courses have different prices then?
Like “I only have money to learn art history this semester”?
That can happen, but usually it’s so much a credit-hour, so if you take 16 credit hours you will pay twice as much as someone who only takes 8. Of course, 8 is generally not enough to be a full-time student, so that may be billed at a higher rate.
The last I knew, 12 to 15 credit-hours was considered a full-time student.
As FreeFlyer said, it’s often based on the number of credit hours. Some classes may have additional fees attached, often for materials or the use of labs or special equipment.
Then, of course, there’s the cost of books, which is often quite a racket. Professors sometimes specify the required use of a book which is updated every year, so you have to buy the latest edition from the college book$tore, and at the end of the year its resale value is effectively zero because this edition will be obsolete before the next class arrives.
I was lucky… my father (and a small scholarship) covered my course fees, so I never had to make that sort of “can I take all of the courses I should, this quarter?” decision.
I was working nearly full-time at student wages to pay my room and board, though, so sometimes I had to decide things like “Can I afford to buy a record album this week, or would I rather eat?”
It was all well worth it in the end, I’m glad I did it, but I don’t miss it.
I flunked out of college and ended up in the publishing gulag. I appreciated the textbook racket a lot better later when they underpaid me to copyedit them. Gotta pay the editors and typesetters, folks! 🙂
Other students: Man it must be nice to be an art major! You don’t have all those textbooks to buy!
Me, holding my Art History textbook and hundreds of dollars worth of art supplies: Yeah, it’s great. 😕
Thanks y’all for clearing that up! I went to uni in Hungary, there you can try to go for the state-funded places in each year (40-60% of the seats, I think, entry depends on your academic score), if you get that, you have a free ride if you manage to finish in a normal timeframe (2-3 years for Bachelor, and then if you get to Master, another 2 years typically). But you have to enter a specific field of study already at application. There’s usually some chance to enter some courses from other fields, but it’s limited.
this is why you listen to the entire message instead of storming off once part of it pisses you off.
Well didn’t THAT just knock the fiery breeze out of her doom sails!
Also…it may not fit the career path she sees herself on, may be a stumbling block. They can get her a degree, they can give her a job, but will it get her, say, respect from her colleagues? “Oh, that’s Professor Duncan. She never publishes. I don’t know how she got tenure.”
Considering the trash that gets published that’s not much of a putdown.
In fact not having to publish and keeping with or ahead of the game would be an object of pure envy.
And that’s not including her fine tail.
Scarlet:
Admired by paranormal community – check
Admired by leaders of one of the world’s most powerful organizations – check
Has the full support of the above – check
Has adorable and understanding boyfriend – check
Has a choice: work on top secret world destroying science or gain recognition within the paranormal science community – well, many human scientists and cryptographers, make that same decision daily.
She’ll be fine.
There is a definite Laundry Files (by Charles Stross) energy in this plotline.
Make them a job offer that they can’t refuse. It’s so much easier than killing them. That was, more or less, the opening of that series.
Free college?
Interesting idea…
Well, THAT just ruined a perfectly good mad-on.
Why do I think Scarlet actually saw the MIB deal correctly and Bud altered it after it hit her desk and came down to Gryphon to smooth things over.
Scarlet.exe is not responding…abort or retry?
The Loop will eventually time out and ‘autoreset’ of it’s own accord, so to speak.
I like the way Scarlet uses the word ”bleep“ as an expletive in its own right (top panel).
I’ve been doing that myself for at ^least^ the better part of 20 years.
DEFUSED!!! (and then some)