the best 13 years of your life.

Currently a college student myself, I realize how much fun this year has been and how much fun the next three will be. I was recently talking to one of my friends who's a third year. She had just met with her academic advisor who told her that she could petition to graduate this year, because she had already fulfilled her requirements. We both laughed at the notion of leaving college a year early when you could spend another year fucking around and having fun, and maybe taking some classes.

I get that. That doesn't mean that I'll want to stay at UCSD for 5 years or, say, 13.


Johnny Lechner is a 29-year-old undergrad at the University of Wisconsin - Whitewater. I don't think I stand alone when I say that I had never heard of this school until reading about Mr. Lechner. Being dubbed a "real life Van Wilder," Lechner realized after four years of college that that wouldn't be enough for him. So her stuck around for another year. And another. And another. And another. You get the idea. He will be entering his 13th year as an undergrad (making him a super-super-super-super-super-super-super-super-super senior) in the Fall of 2006. He was going to graduate this year, but withdrew his application to graduate when he realized, "Hey, I've been here for 12 years and I have yet to go abroad!"

This guy has his own wikipedia.org entry, countless articles/blogs about him, and (of course) his own (awesome) website. From his site (not surprisingly named www.johnnylechner.com):

The upcoming school year will be lived like a movie since Johnny has created a "super-secret-double-probation" list of the final 100 things that he needs to do before his graduation day.

I only hope he came up with that title of the list on his own. Yeah, college!! Among many stupid features on his blog (1) a link to donate to pay his college tuition?! no, thank you; 2) AIM buddy icons of Johnny; 3) Johnny paraphernalia; 4) pictures of Johnny at one of - presumably - many toga parties), there is a list of his accomplishments while in college. Granted, some of them are commendable: Dean's list, 4.0 in a semester, etc., but one of them stood out as moderately ridiculous:

Recognized for exception guest service (Olive Garden)

I mean, really...

Johnny currently has 234 college credits (100 more than he needed to graduate from UWW) and if he had graduated this year, would have received degrees in education, communications, theather, health, and women's studies. The UW Board of Regents implemented a new tax once they realized how long he'd be staying. Like most public state universities (mine included!), the tuition at UWW is lower for residents of that state, subsidized by the taxpayers themselves. Johnny got to enjoy this benefit of being a resident of Wisconsin for five years, after which his tuition essentially doubled (the tax has been dubbed the "slacker tax").