The Meaning of LIFETM

Our eight year old, William, really loves playing the Parker Brother’s reality board game, LIFE. I played the game as a kid in the '70's. As the youngest in my family, I never actually won a game of LIFE or any other board game for that matter. Much later, one of my sisters admitted that she and others took liberties with the rules unbeknownst to me. I got used to losing all the time in my youth. In fact, it made me rather resilient. Now, Willy was rolling out the new version of the old game of LIFE.

While the board looks like the one I used to get trounced on all the time, the game play is a little different. In both, you choose to go to college or into business. The academic path in old LIFE lands you a job with the following salary.

1. Doctor - $20,000
2. Lawyer - $15,000
3. Journalist - $10,000
4. Physicist - $10,000
5. Teacher - $8,000
6. Bachelor's Degree - $6000

Apart from how low salaries were in the '70's, I for one didn't know that a journalist and a physicist made the same scratch. That must be because both involve dreaming up nonsense which everyone accepts as fact. Not going to college will get you a career in business with a salary of $5000, less than a teacher and even less than someone with a bachelor's degree. Back then, working for the man in an office with no air conditioning was less lucrative than a manager of a department store who had a degree in Latin.

In new LIFE, the college route gets you this.

1. Doctor - $100,000
2. Lawyer - $90,000
3. Veterinarian - $80,000
4. Accountant - $70,000
5. Computer Designer - $50,000
6. Teacher - $40,000  

One of the lowest paying jobs is a tech career making computers which beats out educators, who end up dues paying members of the Federation of Teachers. The teacher's union mandates that its members may be fired only after "due process," ensuring that even the worst instructors will remain employed as long as they don't kill anyone. No wonder the US ranks 26 overall for education in the industrialized world behind Latvia and the Czech Republic.

New LIFE's nonacademic career path yields these opportunities.

1. Athlete - $60,000
2. Entertainer - $50,000
3. Police Officer - $40,000
4. Hair Stylist - $30,000
5. Mechanic - $30,000
6. Salesperson - $20,000

Today, without a college degree, your best shot is to shoot hoops or keep pushing your mixtape. A career in business still sucks as it did in the past except now it pays more than a physicist, who apparently can't find a job. In old LIFE, going the college route puts you $1500 in the hole. In new LIFE, a college degree lands you $100,000 in the red. That's about right.

College LIFE

My strategy while playing old LIFE always involved getting a college degree, buying a modest house, and saving as much money as possible. Even though it never worked when playing the game, that's what I did in real life which so far has turned out pretty good. In new LIFE, the blue squares represent lawsuits against other players. In old LIFE, the blue squares all involved playing the stock market. Apparently, you get ahead in new LIFE by suing your neighbor.

Blue Spaces

There are nine "Spin to Win" board spaces in new LIFE. Landing on one of these spaces allows you to bet on the next number spun on the wheel. If your number comes in you get ten times the amount you wager. In old LIFE, you bet on the wheel every time your opponent spins. So the way to win in old LIFE is to gamble. I never knew that. The regular spaces in both games are different as well. For example, in old LIFE there is a space that indicates,

"Lost in the Jungle! Pay $30,000"

While in new LIFE, we have,

"Snowboarding accident! Pay $5000"

Shelling out thousands in ransom to a local warlord in a third world country was a likely scenario back in the '70's as is a snowboarding accident costing thousands today with all the crap healthcare plans we have. Old LIFE has,

"Eccentric Aunt leaves you with 100 cats! Pay $10,000 to give them away."

Alternately, new LIFE has two squares indicating that you "adopt a pet from a shelter." I never knew anybody who spent thousands of dollars to get rid of a bunch of cats. Back when I was young, my neighbor, Old Man Perry, was fed up with a cat that kept sneaking into his garage. Mr. Perry exclaimed,

"That cat's pissing all over the place!"

One day, he caught the cat in the garage so he shut the door, started up his car, then went to get a cup of coffee. I asked Mr. Perry what happened to the cat. He said,

"I threw it in the trash."

That's how we got it done in the '70's.

In old LIFE, if you land directly on a "Pay Day" you had to "Share the Wealth," that is, you draw a card that instructs you to collect half the amount an opponent is entitled to or require someone else to pay half your bill. Your opponent might have an "Exemption Card" which counters your claim. In new LIFE, the "Share the Wealth" card may be played against another player who then must pay half your debt to the bank. In old LIFE, sharing the wealth meant others pay for you. In new LIFE, it means others pay the bank for you because as everyone knows, the banks have us all by the balls.

Unique to old LIFE, is the "Green Revenge Space," which allows you to enact revenge against another player to the tune of $100,000. Alternately, you can send them back ten spaces. The instructions expressly state that you cannot exact revenge on someone in "Millionaire Acres." Of course you can't. With wealth comes power and privilege like spending $450,000 so your kid can get accepted into a geology program in college on a phony athletic scholarship just to wash out in a semester.

Revenge!

Oddly, just south of the green pictured revenge space is,

"Catch a whale, skin diving. Collect $5000"

I'm pretty sure this was not something anyone did with any measure of success in the 1970's. Whale watching was just starting to be a thing back then. I never heard of anyone pawning a whale for $5000. I always thought the old version should've had,

"Draw low draft number. Move ahead three spaces."

Or perhaps,

"Busted for possession of pot. Move back five spaces."

In the new version, we should have,

"Robot takes your job. Take new career card."

Or maybe,

 "Earn useless anthropology degree. Pay all your money."

The biggest difference in the old versus and the new version of LIFE is at the end. In old LIFE when you reach the "Day of Reckoning," you cash out, receiving $20,000 (a doctor's salary) for each kid you have. You either go to "Millionaire Acres" if you think you have enough wealth to win the game, or you bet all your coin on a one in ten chance at the spin of the wheel to become a "Millionaire Tycoon." If your number doesn't come in, you go to the "Poor Farm."

In new LIFE, when you reach the "Retirement" square, you choose to go to "Millionaire Estates" or "Countryside Acres," both of which sound very nice to me. There's no poor farm because that isn't a safe space. You get $10,000 per kid (10% of a doctor's salary), much less than in old LIFE. Apparently, having children has significantly depreciated. During the game, you collect "Life Tiles" when you land on an appropriate square. When the pile of tiles are exhausted, the remaining players who are awarded a Life Tile take them from people in Millionaire Estates but not in Countryside Acres. That's because the people in Millionaire Estates have to pay their fair share. In both versions, the player with the most money at the end wins.

Life is sometimes difficult, often wondrous, and occasionally exhilarating, but one thing is for sure. It's far less complicated than the Game of LIFE.

The Secret to Good Grades

 

In the mid '80s, I was working towards a college degree in engineering. Back then, institutions were unconcerned if students were under a lot of stress. In fact, they took it upon themselves to burden us with a substantial academic workload in attempts to wash us out. This was before anti-bullying agendas or any focus on self-esteem building. I just finished high school where I was pantsed in gym class for four years by jocks, only to find myself accepted into an educational program designed to actively weed out the weak. It all started when I was a sophomore in high school. A long haired punk who played guitar, poorly, in a rock band, I did just enough school work to get by, then I signed up for physics.

Throughout the summer, the prospects of taking a tough science class unnerved me. I quit music, cut my hair then embarked upon my junior year with the intention of applying myself academically. My efforts paid off. I got a perfect score in physics and later in calculus. Along the way, I developed a system to attain stellar grades which carried me through high school where I ended up graduating sixth overall. Modifying my technique for college, I managed to obtain a 3.79 GPA as an undergrad. Later, I earned a masters in engineering at another institution where my system brought me a 3.9 GPA. In the mid '90s, after a little tweaking, I earned a masters in computer science with a 4.0 GPA. Over my many years of academic toil, I've tutored students in math and science, who after embracing my approach, enjoyed a significant improvement in grades.

Proper Textbook

A good text is written for the student, not the author. It's full of clear, concise explanations with illustrations, sample problems, and answers to the odd numbered problems in the back. The book should be no smaller than six by nine inches. A diminutive book appeals to eggheads because they like to think it's packed with important, cranial information that few understand. The choice of textbook tells you something about the teacher. If they like small books devoid of diagrams and annotated with cumbersome notation, then the teacher sees themselves as an intellectual and will likely make the class unnecessarily difficult. What you want to look for is an instructor who enjoys the subject material as well as teaching. The physical characteristics of the textbook is a measure of the pompousness of the instructor.

Bill Nye,
The Bow Tie Guy

Avoid Bow Ties and Scarfs

If a teacher uses a picture of themselves on the faculty webpage wearing a bow tie or a scarf, don't take their class. Like a small textbook, these accessories are a sign of pretentiousness. Professor Lambeau in Good Will Hunting wore a scarf. Teachers who are more interested in their intellectual status among their peers will likely make their class difficult by delivering obtuse lectures, assign unrelated, burdensome homework, and create unfair exams. If the instructor shows up wearing an ascot, drop the class immediately. When the text is good and the class notes closely follow the book, then it's possible to overcome a crappy teacher if you...

Read the Text

If the book is readable, then read it. When you're assigned a set of problems at the end of the chapter, don't approach the task with the attitude that you want to finish the homework as soon as possible. Digest the literature first, and do so before the lecture. This is perhaps the most valuable technique I proffer and is the least likely to be followed. Most students never crack the binding of their textbooks even after spending hundreds of dollars. By reading the lecture material before class, you have the opportunity to ask sophisticated questions in class. Rather than spending a lot of time trying to track down a professor or graduate student during their office hours, hit them up with important questions in class. You can do this most effectively by reading ahead. Doing so also makes you look like you're super smart by asking hardcore questions on material that everyone including the teacher thinks you just absorbed.

Ask Questions During Office Hours

Along with class participation, always go see the instructor during their office hours, even if you don't need any help. Think up a question, either from the lecture or the homework, that you can ask your teacher during their office hours. This is especially important as an undergrad in a large class. Always ensure that you are not a nameless face in the crowd. Eventually, teachers will know you by your first name. They will remember you because they love to talk about their topics of study and will embrace anyone who asks them about their research. I often solicited help from my professors on problems that weren't assigned as homework. After arriving at the solution, they usually questioned if the problem was in the homework set. I would explain that I was just interested in the problem which always made their faces light up.

Don't Form a Study Group in a Class That's Curved

To get a good grade in a class, you need to do well when everyone else does poorly. I never held a study session when the teacher stated that grades would be curved. Whenever I took a class, I considered myself in direct competition with everyone in the room. The only exception was when I took computer science classes with my wife, Christine. One time, a teacher thought we had an unfair advantage being married so he had the class vote on whether we could be on the same team. Most of the students thought the guy was nuts and approved our academic coupling. I think he was going through a divorce.

Take Any Advantage

I was always on the lookout for opportunities up to but excluding cheating. Back before the internet, the best source for a topic of study was Schaum's outlines. Often lazy teachers would pick test questions straight out of Schaum's. Once a friend told me that a teacher announced there were three bonus questions on his math exam, one for undergrads, another for masters, and a third for the PhD, which was him. My friend recognized that all of them came right out of a Schaum's outline. Since it was an open book test, he penned his answers directly from the manual. Once, I ran out of time on a math exam so I chicken scratched a load of gibberish on the last problem then wrote "x = 1" and circled it. Turned out that was the answer. The grad student, whipping through the tests as he corrected, gave me full credit. Today, lazy teachers sometimes copy homework problems directly from the internet. Once you find the source, you can often discover the solution as well.

Always Be Respectful

I taught masters level computer science classes in the '90s. I was always amazed at how rude students were to teachers when they felt they were marked erroneously. Once after my father had unexpectedly passed away, a student approached me holding his test aloft. He said,

"I'm sorry your father died, but why did you mark this off?"

When you're trying to get something out of a teacher, being an ass hat even when you're sure you're right is often counterproductive. Whenever I thought something I did was incorrectly graded, I always asked the teacher to help me understand where I went wrong. Often they discovered their mistake and corrected it themselves. You never know. You might just be wrong so don't be a dickhead when confronting your teacher.

Rate Your Teachers

If you do have a bad experience with a shithead instructor, then go to Rate My Teachers and warn others. I've written extensive reviews of crap teachers which sometimes led to no one signing up for their class the following semester. Having to absorb that zero students want to listen to them is an intellectual slap in the brain bag for an egghead. You should also pen positive words of encouragement concerning good teachers as well. In my early days in academia, there wasn't any websites that afforded an anonymous summary of teacher's performances. Today, there are many review sites that help you get the word out. Writing a review of your teacher won't specifically get you a better grade unless students en masse elect to report their experiences. I just included it because I'm surprised how few students bother to pen their sentiments about an instructor. I know writing is a challenge for many, but you should always take the opportunity to rail about a poor academic experience.


Jack "Hire Smart People" Welch

Some of my suggestions are up to you like reading the text before the lecture or securing face time by asking a baited question. Others are out of your control like a teacher's attitude or choice of textbook. The only option for the latter is to avoid their class altogether.

One last bit of advice. Ignore people that say,

"Grades don't matter."

Your academic performance is a measure of how much effort you are willing to put into a task. I've never worked for a company that didn't seek high academic achievement in applicants. You don't want to work for people who don't hire smart people. So next time you sign up for a class, follow these simple rules, and you too will be a stellar student.