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Minerva: Creating the Dystopian University

Minerva University

AH50: Multimodal Communications

Prof. Powers

November 30, 2021

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Minerva: Creating the Dystopian University

It was from the train's window that she saw it right there, in between the semi-illuminated

tunnel and the cracks in-between stations, a brief skim of the Hell the Golden Gate would open

for her1.

Or so she decided.

It started with the stench in BART stations. Wherever you live, it does not smell quite

like this. It is an interesting combo of weed, urine, and poop that runs as punctually as the trains

themselves. You can’t forget what it means to be human when walking on the sidewalks. The

aroma runs down alleys and sneaks up on you in odd places, lingering on the walls of her dorm

too.

Just open the front door, and you have free perfume. Every floor has its own scent, too —

call its unique Chanel nº 5. It could be the garbage that was not taken out for the past two weeks

or students’ slow but steady disintegration into soulless bodies. You will never know.

She decided it was Hell.

1 #composition: I intentionally broke the reader’s expectation by subtly implying that whatever they think will
happen, will not actually happen. The most important part of the sentence (“the Hell the Golden Gate would open
for her”) is purposefully set in the end of the sentence which contrasts with the illusion that everything is perfect.
This sentence also replicates the structure of the essay in which tension grows exponentially unti its climax to
suddenly break into an unexpected resolution.
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It is rolling your eyes before starting your journey up. And up you go. Taking each step at

a time, thinking, “why the frick frack have they not fixed that elevator!?”. And up you go. And

up you go. And when you feel like you are finally there, guess what? More stairs! But you thank

Americans for considering the first floor of any building the first floor. At least they did

something right, you know?

She decided it was Hell.

16 Turk is spending half a day staring at a glowing screen. Sleeping for five hours is for

the fortunate ones. On other days, you hope your alarm will ring because that beep-BEEEEP

sound is better than the squeak-squeak, squeak-squeak sound of the rats. Or the cockroaches.

Again, you will never know.

She decided it was Hell.

It is like getting ill, really ill, both physically and mentally, and not being able to go to a

doctor because you don’t have the money to pay what your expensive insurance does not cover.

It is tightly holding your tights together — apply pressure, hold it, hold it — while you sprint to

the bathroom praying to a higher creature to stop the blood from leaking into the white carpet.

No water would vanish the strains in her soul. It is not like the dorm had anything but cold water

anyway.

She decided it was Hell.

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It is like swallowing your pride and asking your roommate, “can I have a bit of your

bread, please?”. “Yes, of course”. The roommate would never know that slice of bread was the

only thing she ate that day. Who needs music when your stomach is the best at growling?

She decided it was Hell.

It is screaming, screaming, and screaming for someone, just someone, to open the door

for you or else, or else you — you will face the same fate as that man had a few seconds prior.

BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! Each of the shots at his heart took his chance of

reimagining his life, creating his own destiny. But she is not the Alexander Hamilton from the

musical she never got to see two blocks away; she does not want to take her shot before ever

getting a chance to live.

Enough of it! She runs down the stairs, hops on a train, and finds the best view of San

Francisco among the giants whose roots hug the core of the earth. After all, she had to release her

pent-up anger, somehow.

She decides that 16 Turk is writing this essay in a pink notebook in Dolores Park with her

ears ticklish. Wait. What? A Golden Retriever is licking her ears! She laughs out loud because it

is the only thing that makes her laugh in days!

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But laughter is dangerous. The fifteen meters that guarded her against the loathsome men

are not of much use because their hands caress her arms, her stomach, her neck. It is like having

a gun to her head. Inert. Her heart still beats, but her lungs lose the strength to SCREAM! To

scream...to scream...

And so she thought about the tunnel, how desperate it is to travel at such a high speed

beneath the earth and never see the light again.

She decided her life was Hell2.

She thought about her roommates. Who would take out the trash the next day? Who

would make coffee every day? She thought about her AP partner. How would they review

accomplishments with an odd number of admissions processors? She thought about her

boyfriend. Who is he going to hang out with?

It did not matter anymore.

And she thought about the train.

2 #connotation: In many religions and cultures, Hell is negatively associated with death, punishment, evilness,and
suffering, often alluding to the Devil in the underground with no light (tunnel). At first, it is difficult to associate the
character’s dorm with Hell, but as she describes its negative events, it starts to make sense. Nevertheless, “hell” has
often been overused in everyday life (and in this essay), which makes us question if the character is actually living in
hell or just exaggerating. If I had used another word, like inferno or purgatory, it would not have the same
implications because “hell” can be both negative or just another word that we use every day (“what the hell?”).
When we overuse a word, does it lose meaning?
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She reached the platform at Powell station two minutes before the train. Early. The day

had disintegrated her. She was too tired to be nervous. To be anything, for that matter. But there

was more. She had nothing left to worry about. Free.

She looked at the station clock. She looked at the tracks. She looked at the tunnel.

Then she closed her eyes.

***

She opened her pink computer; her AH50 assignment was long overdue. But she did not

know where to start. Why did she have to have a thesis anyway? Why couldn’t they see that she

was miserable?3 Couldn’t that be the main argument of her essay?45

Word count: 902

3 #thesis: The main argument of this essay is that students at Minerva are living in Hell. They are miserable. This is,
of course, a hyperbole but accentuates the dystopian nature of the university.
4 #organization: Because I wanted to highlight how 16 Turk is Hell, I used the Fichtean Curve as the basis for the
structure of the essay. Instead of setting the scene, I begin with a "crisis" or an unpleasant event (how the dorm
smells), adding many other crises that increase the tension. There is less emphasis on the plot because the character
is more important. How she decides to perceive the events matter more and telling the events through her point of
view leads to the question: can we trust what she tells us?
5#audience: I wrote this essay to tell how my experience at Minerva has been like. It is an over-exaggeration and a
bit theatrical, but professors should be aware of what students experience. The real intention behind is to release and
express my anger and ask for a bit of empathy from our professors. It may be Hell-ish but there is no immense
suffering, on the contrary. Most of our suffering is caused because we tend to perceive our life as miserable when it
does not have to be.
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