College students all across Canada have now had over a month to regret their course choices. Sure, a career as a door-to-door proctologist or a small animal repairman looked good in the course calendar. Then reality bit.

At rabble we care about post-secondary education and about making the right choices. So, here we present viable alternatives to the programs offered at community colleges today. It’s not too late. Change your mind — change your life!

French Immersion Baptism
NEW! Guarantee a place in heaven and a lucrative career as a civil servant at the same time. Many former students are now successful ministerial assistants who know that one day God’s face will smile upon them, despite the lucrative advertising contracts they dished out in Quebec.

Homeless Decorating
This winter there will be even more indigent people competing for valuable downtown real estate and attention. Set yourself apart! Even a heating vent on Toronto’s swish Queen Street West can look drab without the right accessories. Students will discover which brand of corrugated cardboard is this season’s “must-have.” Plus, you’ll learn basic calligraphy for that extra special touch on hand-lettered signs. Turn your curb into your castle. It’s simple and fun!
Prerequisite: Tent City Squatting

Diploma Therapy
You might not have a job, but at least you can be over-qualified for one. Feel better about yourself by training for that icy day in Hell when you’ll actually be gainfully employed.
Prerequisite: university degree in philosophy or art history

Reflexology as a Martial Art
Reflexologists attempt to cure illness by squeezing the feet. But the reverse is also possible! Students will learn how to induce acne, shingles, constipation and irritable bowel syndrome in would-be assailants.

How to Understand Stephen Hawking
A survey course that introduces students to the basic concepts of quantum mechanics, string theory and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
Prerequisite: having bought but never read Name of the Rose and Gödel, Escher, Bach

Clowns, Mimes and Psychopaths
For many children’s performers it can take years for deeply rooted psychological damage to fully manifest itself as unsettling psychosis. This fast-track program gets you job-ready for a career as a disturbing balloon-animal performer in just three months.
Prerequisite: Pratfalls for Pedophiles

Feng Shui for Your Chakras
East meets east in this fascinating course that teaches you how to make sure the spiritual centres of your soul are aligned with positive energy and your end tables.

Mutual Funds for Beginners
Students will be taught the essentials of sound financial planning and investment including diversification, load vs. no-load, equity, fund management, portfolio spreading and foreign bond markets. They’ll then be given goat entrails.

Mutual Funds for Experts
Students get the goat entrails in the first class.

Web Site Design
Students will learn the basics of HTML, Javascript, Flash, XML and PERL. They will then be encouraged to make a living competing with twelve-year-olds who will do the same work for free tickets to Green Day concerts and three cans of Jolt cola.

American Sign Language
Students planning on travelling in the United States will learn to decipher a variety of signs such as “Ammo R Us,” “Ernie’s Pig Pit ’n’ Bar-B-Q,” “All-Nite Booze Barn” and “Come the Rapture This Here Pickup Gonna Be Real Empty.”

wayne

Wayne MacPhail

Wayne MacPhail has been a print and online journalist for 25 years. He was the managing editor of Hamilton Magazine and was a reporter and editor at The Hamilton Spectator until he founded Southam InfoLab,...