The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: College

The college years are a time of noble pursuit of knowledge, intellectual development ? and unending peril!' So says the back-cover copy for The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook for College. Between the covers are tips on how to sleep in class, how to ask your parents for money, how to write a last-minute paper, and more.

Prefaced with a strong disclaimer that aims to indemnify the publisher from liability should anyone suffer harm from following the book's advice, the book contains suggestions from a panel of 'experts' that includes a host of freelance writers and editors, and bar owners.

Organized into four sections ('Getting Settled,' 'Room and Board,' 'Extracurricular Survival Skills,' and 'Class Survival'), the book also contains an 'easy-to-use pronunciation guide to philosophers, artists, and writers with weird names,' for those unable to use a dictionary, because the authors contend, 'sounding smart can be even more important than being smart.'

Despite such lowbrow fare, however, the experts the authors consulted also include psychologists and academicians who offer sound advice. For example, when it comes to selecting a college, they recommend visiting a prospective school during a regular day of classes to get a true picture of what campus life is like at the institution, as opposed to visiting on a holiday when students are away. They also condone interviewing alumni of the school and suggest 'if three of them recount stories of drinking at 6 A.M. or have no memory of college at all, the school is most likely a party school.' Another tip suggests comparing the number of books in the college's library to the number of seats in its sports stadium.

Also included are a number of practical tips, such as how to test your dorm-room mattress for comfort, how to construct a milk-crate chair, how to make curtains from old t-shirts, how to transform a CD jewel case into a picture frame, how to put out a microwave fire, and how to avoid coming down with botulism while eating in the school cafeteria: 'No meat or poultry should ever be yellow, blue or green.'

But then there is advice that falls into the "questionable" category, the kind that may be more likely to lead to conflict than harmony, such as misaligning your roommate's satellite dish to eliminate the din of constant sporting events, or trying to spoil a promiscuous roommate's chances of hooking up with a prospect at a party by hinting that the roommate has a medical condition.

Other suggestions are simply laughable, such as avoiding doing laundry in the conventional manner by piling dirty clothes into a convertible and driving through a car wash with the top down, while still others are disgusting and probably dangerous to your health. In a section entitled, 'How to Eat When You're Broke,' for instance, the authors propose volunteering to clear tables at a restaurant and eating patrons' leftovers, and rummaging through dumpsters behind supermarkets for expired food. A brief section on 'How to Vomit Correctly' pretty much details the natural process, while other pointers are juvenile at best, like faking vomiting, fainting or a seizure to get out of writing an exam.

Based on the type of audience the book is likely to attract, it seems appropriate that tips on how to tell your parents you've been expelled from school are included.