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In this final part of the UX series, we share some ways instructors can help students to see user experience and usability as the rhetorical, human, and messy processes that they are. We also celebrate the season finale of TC Talk with a game show, Wheel of Exigencies, during which you will meet the new celebrity spokesperson for Course Hero!
Sources and further reading
- Chong, F. (2016). The pedagogy of usability: An analysis of technical communication textbooks, anthologies, and course syllabi and descriptions. Technical Communication Quarterly, 25(1), 12–28.
- Cooke, L., & Mings, S. (2005). Connecting usability education and research with industry needs and practices. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 48(3), 296–312.
- Getto, G., & Beecher, F. (2016). Toward a Model of UX Education: Training UX Designers Within the Academy. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 59(2), 153–164. https://doi.org/10.1109/TPC.2016.2561139
- Meloncon, L., & Henschel, S. (2013). Current State of U.S. Undergraduate Degree Programs in Technical and Professional Communication. Technical Communication, 60(1).
- Orr, E. (2022, March 12). Ramps: How to Forage & Eat Wild Leeks. Foraging for Wild Edibles. https://www.wildedible.com/blog/foraging-ramps
- Rose, E., & Tenenberg, J. (2017). Making practice-level struggles visible: Researching UX practice to inform pedagogy. Communication Design Quarterly Review, 5(1), 89–97.
- Scott, J. B. (2008). The practice of usability: Teaching user engagement through service-learning. Technical Communication Quarterly, 17(4), 381–412. https://doi.org/10.1080/10572250802324929
- St.Amant, K. (2018). Contextualizing Cyber Compositions for Cultures: A Usability-Based Approach to Composing Online for International Audiences. Computers and Composition, 49, 82–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2018.05.007
- Zhou, Q. (2014). “ That usability course”: What technical communication programs get wrong about usability and how to fix it. Communication Design Quarterly Review, 2(3), 25–27.
Transcript
| P | Hi this is Phoebe and today we’re gonna talk about TC Talk. What’s TC Talk? Well, I’m glad you asked. TC stands for…. What? Technical Communication. Got it. |
| B | I’m Benton, |
| A | I’m Abi. |
| B | And Fern is at the door. |
| A | Like clockwork our cat is wanting to join us. |
| B | Come on. In or out. There you go. |
| A | I’m a professor of technical communication and rhetoric. |
| B | And technically I’m a communicator. I am not from the world of the academy, nor am I personally a technical communicator. |
| A | And therefore, |
| B | I’m here to be the non-expert with some information and opinions of my own. |
| A | Indeed. Let’s toast. |
| B | Oh toast. Get the toaster here. |
| A | Not that kind of toast, okay. |
| AB | Have you ever put butter on a poptart? It’s so freaking good. [sings] |
| A | Sorry. It’s a thing now. it must be done. |
| B | Yep. Ooh. |
| A | This is an old fashioned, but I made it more interesting by muddling cherries and an orange wheel. |
| B | So would that make it a new fashioned? |
| A | I suppose. And the most exciting part is that I now have an official muddler. |
| B | An official muddler? |
| A | Would you pronounce it muddler or muddler? |
| B | We could get the pronouncing dictionary, |
| A | Which you do in fact have, and have consulted to prove me wrong on things in the past. |
| B | It’s true. It is always nice to have authoritative texts on your side. |
| A | And by authoritative you mean prescriptive and limiting. Did it even have the word…? |
| B | Descriptive. It’s descriptive. It tells you what is accepted as the right pronunciation when this book is written. |
| A | That’s by definition prescriptive. |
| B | Right. Okay. What is generally accepted as the proper pronunciation. |
| A | So society might change its mind along the way and say, we’re not going to pronounce it bagel anymore. We’re going to pronounce it bah-gel. |
| B | You’re mocking me. |
| A | Mm-hmm. Bag-el. |
| B | Le bagle. |
| A | Yes. There is something satisfying about having the right tool for the job. |
| B | Oh yeah. |
| A | The muddler and/or muddler. Also, let’s kick it off with fun with fungus, because you have already had your fun with fungus for the day. |
| B | It’s true. |
| A | Although before you get into it, we should explain to people who may be wondering what is fun with fungus. |
| B | Yes, for those of you just joining us. Fun with fungus is a, it’s a segment of our podcast where I get to talk about something that I have technical expertise in. |
| A | And I do not. |
| B | And you do not. And that area is mushrooms. And more broadly, fungus. |
| A | The world of fungus is more fascinating than you could imagine. |
| B | It is. My fun with fungus today was eating mushrooms that I foraged myself. |
| A | Not only were they mushrooms, they were morels. |
| B | They were morals. And I found five of them that are about as big as the last two segments of my little finger. |
| A | That’s oddly specific. |
| B | Okay. The other fingers are bigger. |
| A | But we learned that there’s no such thing as an average pinkie finger length. |
| B | There is no such thing as an average this or that part of the human body, |
| A | Which you can learn more about by listening to UX part three. Yes. And you cooked it with ramps, is that right? |
| B | Yes. So the same day that I found these five morels I was looking around and I also found a fair abundance of ramps. |
| A | Which are not a fungus, but what are they? |
| B | They are also known as wild leeks. They are in the allium genus. I don’t know if it’s a genius, genus, |
| A | Category, nonetheless. |
| B | It is not a genius, it is only a plant, but the genius of it. So ramps have a flavor that is somewhere between onion and garlic. Onion and garlic are in the allium family. If you want to use that word non taxonomically. |
| A | Group. |
| B | Group, which is also a taxonomic designation, isn’t it? |
| A | But not a technical part of the taxonomy. If you’re going like Kingdom Phylum, Genus, Species. |
| B | That’s right. Genus was the G. |
| A | Thanks high school biology. |
| B | Ramps grow wild in a lot of forests in North America. They pop up really early in the season. If you are going to forage this, please be responsible. Don’t decimate any populations of ramps by overharvesting. It’s hard on them if you do that. And ramps have been hard hit by overharvesting. My foraging group is very, very adamant about be responsible. |
| A | That’s a very good lesson. And so you had this as a side to your main dish for lunch, which was a taco sandwich. |
| B | Yes. A taco sandwich. |
| A | Yeah. I saw you putting the taco filling between two slices of bread and I was like, there’s tortillas right there. You said, Oh, I didn’t think of that. I probably wouldn’t recommend that meal pairing. But you do you. |
| B | I do. I certainly do me. |
| A | Don’t read into that too much. This is our last episode of our first season of tech comm talk. Episode 20. Seemed like a nice even number to, to end on. |
| B | This is it? |
| A | Summer is starting. So we can take a break from it. I absolutely want to continue because this has been so good for me, for motivating me to read and seriously engage with other people’s work. |
| B | Engage! Number one. |
| A | And I hate to say it, but sometimes higher education rewards production of writing and research. But the work of engaging others’ writing and research is much more invisible and not easily like documented if that makes sense. |
| B | Speaking is valued but listening is not. |
| A | Ooh, yeah, that’s actually a good metaphor. And you know, in the quest for tenure, people are trying to turn out articles. |
| B | Is that a video game, the quest for tenure? |
| A | No, It’s Book 8 in the Harry Potter series. |
| B | Oooh, okay, Who? |
| A | Harry Potter and the quest for a permanent academic appointment. |
| B | It could be though, couldn’t it? It could be a board game, the quest for tenure, |
| A | A board game. |
| B | BORED. |
| A | Oh. I would enjoy a board game called The Quest for tenure, because you could have like one deck of cards that’s committee assignments and another that’s okay, that wouldn’t be very exciting. |
| B | Personal life. Nah, we don’t need to play with that one. |
| A | No joke. There could be like disasters mixed into the deck like |
| B | Monkeypox. |
| A | I was thinking more along the lines of provost wants to cut all liberal arts programs or |
| B | Elon Musk appointed president. |
| A | Oh shit. |
| B | Of all academia. Well, there goes the neighborhood. |
| A | But sure, monkeypox, why not? |
| B | It’s in the news right now. |
| A | Is it really? |
| B | Yes. |
| A | Don’t we have enough pandemics? |
| B | No. |
| A | I hope to continue it in the fall, but it will be on a much less frequent publishing schedule because I will be back to my regular pace of work. After coming off of sabbatical. We’ll see what ends up happening with that. But other than that, we might put out some episodes in the summer, not like in the usual format, but I would like to put out a little series of interview based episodes where we talk with people not about their research per se, but about what’s a form of tech comm that you do in your everyday life. So hey, if you want to talk to us, by all means, reach out. Because I want to emphasize the everydayness of tech comm, that you don’t have to be an academic or a professional in it to encounter it or do it in your life. |
| B | Mm-hmm. |
| A | We are concluding our series on usability and UX by talking about teaching. |
| B | Okay. |
| A | Part 1. What is UX? Part 2. How do you do it? Part 3. How do you do it in a socially just way? Part 4, how do you teach it? The earliest articles I could find about usability and pedagogy were from the early 2000s. And that kind of paralleled the argument that hey, UX is something that has a natural overlap with tech comm. And correspondingly, people started to argue that technical communication programs should start to teach this. |
| B | Oh, okay. |
| A | So one study of programs in tech comm found that why are you looking at me like that? Is there’s something on my face? Is there something on top of my head? |
| B | No. |
| A | Yes. |
| B | Okay. So I just want to rewind a little bit. Argue in the sense that it was debated or…? |
| A | No. Just argue in the academic sense where somebody says something that’s ultimately not all that controversial, but it’s supposedly a newish idea. I can see that there would potentially be actual debate with programs that are perhaps resistant to |
| B | Curmudgeonly? |
| A | Following the new fad. Although it’s proven to not be a fad over the last couple of decades. And the other thing is that to incorporate something that certainly in 2005, for instance, was probably quite new to these programs, that can require an investment in professional development for instructors. Usability lab, that’s not inexpensive, |
| B | Right. |
| A | And at the time that was thought to be the way to do usability. Like I’ve said before, not that that’s not a valuable way to do usability for some purposes, in some contexts, but I don’t think you need one to teach it. |
| B | That’s been my experience, at least. |
| A | How so? |
| B | Well, I’ve never needed to use a usability lab for teaching. |
| A | Listeners, I hope you could hear the eye roll through the microphone. Okay. One study of tech comm programs showed that from 2005 to 2011, there was an increase to 11% of programs requiring a usability course. So this article was published in 2013. The word user experience didn’t even show up at that point. And I don’t know that we have more recent data, but I would put money on the fact that more than 11 percent of programs are requiring some kind of coursework in usability at this point. More recent articles, I would say, are starting to say, all right, enough with arguing that usability matters in teaching. Let’s write about how to actually teach usability. |
| B | Hm. |
| A | And the big theme here is quite literally the importance of going beyond textbook usability. In 2016, Felicia Chong published an article wherein she did a content analysis of tech comm tech textbooks. Tech comm textbooks. There. Got it out. And found that the textbooks don’t necessarily treat usability as rhetorical in the way that we have come to see it as a field more recently. What I mean by that is the textbooks kind of present it as, here’s a step-by-step how you do a think-aloud protocol, how you do heuristic analysis, whatever. But it doesn’t necessarily get into when would you want to use these? Why would you want to use them? What, In what ways can you adapt them to respond to the reality of usability testing, which is certainly not a textbook experience because you’re dealing with human beings. And that means dealing with scheduling and negotiating, and compiling sometimes contradictory feedback. And all of these kind of interpersonal skills are a huge part of doing UX, but aren’t necessarily covered in teaching about it. |
| B | So in all of these cases, you’re dealing with human beings, at least until our next episode. |
| A | Oh, okay. I don’t know if we’re going to give out the secret yet. |
| B | Foreshadowing. |
| A | And the answer is not robots either. |
| B | The answer is never robots. |
| A | Benton is alluding to an episode that we have planned for later this summer that’s going to be part of the, the Big Rhetorical Podcast Carnival. |
| B | Yes. |
| A | Places and spaces in and beyond the academy. So stay tuned for that. Around the same time Quan Zhou did a presentation with the title that usability course. So acknowledging that there is a usability course in many of these programs and people might think of it in terms of what do we do with this. He says, “usability is about people. Usability requires sophisticated communication and listening skills, and the ability to work flexibly with various kinds of people.” So those are the skills that we need to help students practice. Not just the textbook, how to do this. |
| B | Just, just as a refresher for me, usability and user experience, which did we decide was the more enlightened? Which is newer? |
| A | Okay. So user experience is de rigeur. Did I say that right? |
| B | You’re asking the wrong guy. |
| A | Right. |
| B | De rigeur. |
| A | Thank you. The conclusion is that not that one is more enlightened than the other, but one is more encompassing than the other. |
| B | That’s it, yes. |
| A | Usability is part of UX. It’s kind of a stage of the process. It’s less good when you think of usability as the only point at which you engage users. Or if you think of it as only taking place at the end of a design project. Another strand of research on UX and usability pedagogy has focused on bridging the gap between industry and the classroom. So I have a couple studies here where the researchers talked to UX practitioners. Cooke and Mings boiled down their results into 1) Students need knowledge of the different methods and the skills to apply the methods. 2) the ability to critically assess test results and to make sound recommendations. So the ability to make those trade-offs, sometimes that we were talking about in part 2, where maybe you need to give up some rigor here in order to meet a deadline. But, you know, making those choices in an informed way. Critical assessment of the data that you get, right? How do you analyze it and frame it in a way that’s actionable? And then 3) skill in communicating in both writing and speech. So again, we’re seeing that thread of communication skills coming through. |
| B | Mm-hmm. |
| A | A more recent study, Rose and Tenenberg, they note, “without understanding the depth of the rhetorical work that takes place in UX, students may perceive methods as a collection of neutral tools which when applied systematically achieve a desired result.” They talked to these practitioners about the importance of researching and segmenting audiences, prototyping and fidelity and kind of making context-specific decisions. And what I like about their article is that they explain that there is a place for textbook methods and concepts. But you don’t want to stop there. |
| B | Hm. |
| A | They write “when first introducing these concepts, we must momentarily tame the complexity. Not to obscure, but to give students the ability to try out, practice, and gain competencies.” They continue “during application. We then trouble these practices by highlighting their rhetorical nature.” They give students structured practice, but then they complicate it as they go on and push students to critically reflect on the choices they’re making and why. And that seems to be a really essential piece, highlighting how usability is rhetorical. So by now, we’ve established that we need to teach usability beyond a textbook approach. Next, let’s talk about some of the ways to teach this rhetorical approach to usability. Number one is doing a client-based project or service learning project. So get students out there working with actual participants. And there’s this article by Blake Scott. It’s basically a case study of a class and how their conceptions of usability evolved from the beginning to the end in a service learning project. Yet, he emphasizes that these kinds of setups can be very messy. In fact, there, I think you should assume that they will be messy by default. So he says there is definitely value in service learning, but it needs to be carefully structured. |
| B | Oh, yeah, I can see that. I could definitely see people missing the point. |
| A | Right. Like I did when I was an undergraduate. I think what it comes down to is, don’t expect an ideal situation. |
| B | Right |
| A | Expect it to be messy. And that means you budget more time, you budget more preparation, more practice. And that can include things like my client won’t email me back. Or we can’t find a mutual time to meet. Like all these very every day kinds of problems that, you know, early undergraduates should probably not be expected to know how to handle. |
| B | Right. |
| A | He comments on how, once students realized how complicated these arrangements can actually be, they defaulted to simplifying. And often simple can be better, right? |
| B | Mm-hmm. |
| A | But I think in this case, that simplifying amounted to engaging less with participants or doing things like trying to do e-mail interviews because that was more comfortable for the student and not necessarily accounting for what do my participants need? |
| B | Or what do I actually hope to get out of this? |
| A | And you know, I’ve been on the receiving end of that type of email before, where students need to interview someone for a project. And I remember one time somebody emailed me, like Wednesday night before Thanksgiving and asked me to respond in like two days and I’m like, let me have a freaking holiday. And so it’s things like that that maybe scaffold your assignments so that they have enough buffer time to work through those kinds of issues and enough buffer time to set up a plan B if you can’t get what you need by a certain deadline. Those are skills that students should be aware of. Getto and Beecher, they also recommended service learning, but they also talk about doing role-plays, simulations, and play. They write “Although practice allows learners to get a handle on the basics of a method, playing with that method in a safe environment allows them to make the method their own. Play is the final stage because it means that learners are ready to put their own spin on the method.” |
| B | Hmm, interesting that they use the word play when I would use the word experiment. |
| A | I think that describes what’s going on. But yes, maybe that kind of thing can be a precursor to client-based work. They also recommend advisory boards and industry partnerships. This can provide those opportunities for client-based projects, apprenticeships, internships, potentially professional development for the instructor. Because again, a lot of tech comm teachers haven’t necessarily been trained in UX. |
| B | And some of that is, of course, the time lag in when UX came onto the scene. |
| A | One more idea here, and this would be great for international tech comm and international audiences. Kirk St.Amant recommends setting up international partnerships so that students can interview people in a different country and get their perspectives on what they need in a piece of technical communication versus making assumptions about what they need. Like we were talking about last episode. |
| B | Mm. |
| A | Okay. What does this mean for me and my teaching? Because that’s kinda where this interest all began. So Quan Zhou, again, his solution to that usability course is to broaden it to UX and then have a three-course series. One on the UX process more generally, one on specific methods for usability testing and one for methods on user research. |
| B | Rather than it being just like this one-off class. Have it be a prerequisite chain. |
| A | Yeah. |
| B | Something that you study for like a year and a half in your college experience as opposed to it was a topics course and I kludged my way through it, but |
| A | Yeah, so that sends a message about really valuing that skill. |
| B | You have time for it to really sink in. |
| A | Yeah. In more humanistic disciplines like tech comm, I think the prerequisite thing is not quite as essential, |
| B | True. |
| A | But I do think having students get exposure to these ideas across more than one course is certainly valuable. And I don’t know that for every program it’s going to be feasible to expand UX out into, into three courses. But what is feasible is expanding it within the context of a Gen Ed Technical Communication course |
| B | Mm-hmm. |
| A | that is already on the books at most universities. And in fact, I have some ideas for how I want to change the way that I teach usability in my Gen Ed course. So the first thing I would do is I would incorporate a user research step. One of the core assignments of my course is creating instructions. And that can, that’s pretty open-ended. It can be various modes, various topics, individual or collaborative. You know, there’s lots of ways to do that, but I haven’t always thought of topic selection as a point at which you can incorporate user perspectives. I like the idea of having students shape their topics around What does your audience actually need, right? Instead of going in there and saying, college students need to know how to tie a tie so they can go on professional interviews. And, you know, that may very well be the case. |
| B | It may be useful for some. |
| A | And that’s fine. But to get them to talk to each other about what are the kinds of things that you look up on YouTube in terms of how do I do x? Oh I should note, I have them write their instructions for other college students so that they can get more authentic results when they usability test each other. But really taking into account how people authentically search for instructions. It’s usually not going to be a manual or a paper document, unless it’s like cribbage instructions that are tucked inside a board game box or something, |
| B | Mm-hmm. |
| A | Also, people’s purposes and learning how to do something. Is it a troubleshooting of a process they need to do? Like How do I submit this assignment on the course management system? Or is it they want to learn how to play ukulele? And so really getting a feel for what do you need to know how to do as a college student and kind of balancing that with students’ own expertise in what they can teach. Because I don’t want students to have to learn a new process out of thin air for purposes of an assignment. I want them to take what do they already know? How can they adapt that in a way that meets a need for this audience? The other thing I want to change about how I teach that is more iterating, more phases of user feedback and revision versus one. |
| B | Yeah, I can see why a student, especially from a writing class, would say, okay, revision is a one-step process. You turn in your rough draft, the instructor identifies what you need to work on. You correct it. It’s over, which is not accurate. But boy, is it tidy and convenient to think so. |
| A | For sure. |
| B | I could easily see them taking that wrong learning into this environment and thinking, oh, okay, well, n equals 1. Revise, I’m done. |
| A | One usability test. Now the product is perfect. Yeah. Okay. You can introduce UX ideas elsewhere in the curriculum in courses like I teach a writing about health and medicine class, I can incorporate a UX design process within that context. There’s a course in international tech comm that could have a place there as well. Okay? Do you want to take a usability course now? |
| B | No. |
| A | No. Do you want a teach usability course now? |
| B | Heavens, no. |
| A | That’s all I wanted to cover for that. |
| B | Okay. Well, should we have any season wrap kind of remarks? |
| A | I think our season wrap is going to consist of fun, not with fungus, mind you. Fun with the rhetorical situation. I want to celebrate the conclusion of season 1 of TC talk with a game. |
| B | We love games precious. |
| A | I’d like to call this game wheel of exigencies. |
| B | Doo Doo, Doo, Doo, Doo, Doo, Doo. |
| A | Isn’t that the price is right song? |
| B | Oh, you’re right. |
| A | What is the wheel of fortune song? |
| B | [sings] |
| A | Okay. I was not ever a big wheel of fortune watcher. |
| B | I couldn’t think of it until you just asked |
| A | Just pulled it out of the recesses of your brain. That was impressive. |
| B | Thanks, mom, for watching it all the time. |
| A | Here’s how this game works. First of all, exigency. We have talked about this on the pod in the past. It is a component of the rhetorical situation. According to Lloyd Bitzer an exigence is an imperfection marked by urgency. It’s the thing that prompts the rhetoric, something happens, and a rhetor needs to speak or write. Now, over the years there’s been some debate. Do rhetors create the rhetorical situation or do they merely respond to it? And so when I have you respond to these exigencies, I urge you to express your creativity. So a rhetorical situation generally consists of the exigence, a text or speech, a rhetor, the person doing the communication and an audience who receives the communication and a larger context. So I have two wheels here. One wheel is for the rhetor, and each slice of the wheel corresponds to an impression that you do. And the second wheel consists of a series of exigencies that I invented to which you need to respond in character. Are you ready? |
| B | As ready as I can be the first time live. This is courtesy of PickerWheel.com. Wow. |
| A | What have we got? |
| B | We have Kermit. Kermit the Frog. |
| A | I actually chose two different wheel apps because I couldn’t decide. Now your exigency. |
| B | This is on WheelOfNames.com. Kermit in jeopardy. |
| A | Kermit. |
| B | Hello. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me on your show. |
| A | You’re actually on Celebrity Jeopardy right now. |
| B | I am? |
| A | And you’re in last place. |
| B | What? |
| A | You hit the daily double, and you have a chance to take the lead. The category is colors that are red. Make your wager. |
| B | Hmm. Carry the three. Oh, okay. I wagered 500 flies. |
| A | I’ll write. This color is traditionally the color of apples, tomatoes and red peppers. |
| B | Oh boy. What is green? |
| A | I’m sorry, the correct answer is red. |
| B | What? Well, I’ll tell you what, it is not easy being green. Maybe I need to introduce you to something called the Rainbow Connection. And I know I had it here somewhere. Someday, we’ll find it, I guess. |
| A | All right. Would you like to do the honors this time of spinning our impression wheel |
| B | Spin, spins, spin, plink. It seems that we have selected Gandalf. This click in the middle, do our. |
| A | Gandalf |
| B | Yes? |
| A | You are lost in the IKEA and you need to find a bathroom. |
| B | I have no memory of this place. I believe I smell pancakes. Oh Meriadoc Brandybuck, when you don’t know which way to go, always follow your nose. Who on earth has put so much furniture in one giant room. Here we are. The little wizards room. Let’s see here. Oh, there appears to be some sort of an ancient enchantment on this door. Speak friend, and enter. [speaks fake Elvish] Perhaps I have to magic the doors open. |
| A | Excuse me, sir. You can push. |
| B | Wonderful. Thank you. Good, Sir. |
| A | Next up. Okay. This time we’re going to start with the exigence and then we’ll tell you who they, who your character is. Okay? So I need to give you a little background on this. You are auditioning for the role of celebrity spokesperson for Course Hero. Course Hero, to those unawares is an ed tech company that is predatory in the sense that it asks students to upload papers, assignment sheets, materials from any course they’ve taken. And then they have to pay or continue uploading content in order to access those materials, which are often out-of-date, decontextualized from the classroom experience and violates instructors’ intellectual property. It’s been called a quote, unquote cheating site. And they are attempting to legitimize themselves by trying to get in the good graces of educators. |
| B | Okay. |
| A | People on the academic side. |
| B | Okay. How do they think they can manage that? |
| A | Money. |
| B | That easy, huh? |
| A | But apparently now they are seeking out celebrity endorsements, so let’s figure out |
| B | Which celebrity they’re going to get endorsed. I don’t know, this is going to be too hard. |
| A | That’s what will make it funny. Who are you? |
| B | Okay. Let’s see. Is this thing on? Oh, okay. Yes, sir. All right. I am Bernie Sanders. Once again, I am asking you to consider my proposal. We are living in unprecedented times of academic crisis. You may be asking yourself, how on earth am I going to get a decent grade in this class? Well, I have some news for you. Course Hero is a platform that can help you get the information that you need to succeed on each and every class that you are taking. So I know what you may be thinking is why is Bernie Sanders spokesman for a so-called cheating company? Let me tell you. This is not about me. It is about us and is about millions and millions of Americans being denied employment opportunities because they do not get good enough grades in a college system that is rigged against them. This is about striking back against the academic elite and taking the power back to the people. |
| A | Oh no, that was pretty persuasive. |
| B | So join me in coming against the millionaires and billionaires in charge of the higher education institutions in this nation. And once again, I am asking you to join me on Course Hero. |
| A | I do think you’re on the wrong side of this. To be fair, Bernie, academics are hardly millionaires and billionaires. |
| B | I’m talking about the presidents of these institutions. And the football coaches. |
| A | You know, could we not just change the system where we don’t use grades, which are certainly biased. They’re not necessarily good indicators of actual learning. |
| B | How long do you think I have been trying to change the goddamn system in this country? |
| A | Fair enough. |
| B | Thank you. Let’s see who I get to be now. Well, Lassie, it seems that you’ve decided to invite me back. I am of course, glad to be here. You’ll have to explain this to me. |
| A | Okay. First of all, who are you? |
| B | I am Sean Connery. |
| A | Mr. Connery. |
| B | Yes. |
| A | The gyro restaurant on campus accidentally made the tzatziki sauce with vanilla yogurt. And you’re complaining to the manager. |
| B | I am a complaint to the manager. |
| A | True story, by the way. |
| B | True story. |
| A | Except I didn’t complain because it was like the student worker’s first day back at work. |
| B | Say there, sonny, would you be so kind as to find your manager for me? You’re the manager? Good lord. Okay, manager. I’d like to ask you, to refund me for this terrible sandwich. |
| A | I’m sorry, sir. No refunds. It’s policy. |
| B | I will not pay this fine I’ve incurred. It’s unjust! I cannot be held responsible for the results of this 800 dollar gyro. You think you’re so smart with the open top hat on and an apron. Think you’re so smart serving gyros. |
| A | I’m sorry, Mr. Connery. We’ll try again next time. |
| B | You damn well better. |
| A | Last one. We have Vladimir Putin here in the studio with us today. |
| B | Privet. Thank you for having me. |
| A | You have just been elected president of the puppeteers of America club and are giving your acceptance speech. |
| B | The puppeteers of America will be strong. I will ensure that every puppeteer will be able to have puppet. We will all also have clubs. Is important. You have puppet, you need to club it. |
| A | Are there certain types of puppets, that you prefer to club over others, Mr. Putin? |
| B | Yes, stupid American puppet. |
| A | I’m not the puppet. You’re the puppet. |
| B | Well, that depends upon perspective. Whose hand is up other’s bottom. |
| A | We can’t keep this in the recording, can we? |
| B | Maybe not that last bit. |