American Idle

Honors college students experiment with laziness; results aren’t pretty.

By Chris Carroll | Illustration by Papee Thirawat | Terp Magazine

Biological sciences major Anika Samee ’22 figured she was a little different from the average Honors College student—more easygoing, more willing to occasionally settle for good enough rather than demand perfection.

So she assumed an assignment in a University Honors seminar last semester focusing on American attitudes toward laziness would be a snap: Just spend eight hours relaxing with no homework, no laundry, no hardcore workouts, and then write about it.

“I started out watching a movie for about two hours,” she says. “Then I couldn’t help it. I started cleaning and ended up spending the rest of the day sorting out my entire life.”

Their generation may be sometimes slapped with the label “snowflakes” and stereotyped as more interested in play than toil, says Katie Stanutz Ph.D. ’15 English, assistant director of University Honors and teacher of the “American Idle” seminar, but her students in reality have powerful work ethics.

Read the complete story in Terp Magazine