Akshat’s Spin on Integration Week

By Akshat Singh

Each week Akshat gives you a funny spin on the Sciences Po news. This time he’s having a stab at Integration Week.

Just when the retired couples in Reims had started to enjoy the peace of the city, loud chants of ‘À Reims’ quashed any dreams of relaxation. Today it was officially confirmed: the inebriated students and dried up spots of vomit can be traced back to the reopening of Sciences Po and the Integration Week that came with it.

Integration Week was dramatic. Zoologists would call it a prime example of animal behavior where the vulnerable are preyed on by predators. The prey in this example are the new 1A students, as cheerful and optimistic as naïve lambs being driven to a slaughterhouse.

“I am so excited about college life and this place seems really positive. I am sure that I will change the world while I’m here,” said an obviously misled 1A student with unremoved tags hanging out from his newly bought clothes.

Just then some 2As who overheard the conversation burst out laughing, reminiscing about a time when they were full of hope and expectations from life.

Since money is sometimes the best cure for misery, several 2As have recently taken it upon themselves to ‘help’ dear junior students by giving away their 1A books. For a little price of course. As a result, an increasing number of 2As have been found ripping apart pages of new books and underlining random sentences. When asked why, one student explained, “If the 1As find out that they, like us, are never going to open their textbooks, why would they buy them? Then we will have no money for cigarettes and alcohol. So we decided to make sure that our books look old.”

This ingenuity shows that Sciences Po truly is a school of future world leaders.

Also spotted at Integration Week events were conspicuous circles of 2A students watching the antics from the sidelines. A further inquiry revealed that they were waiting for potential 1A ‘targets’.

“Sexual lust is completely natural. Sadly we were unable to find partners last year but with the 1As we have a fresh opportunity,” explained a distressed 2A student just as two people next to him leapt with their fangs at a nervous 1A. “I need to leave now,” he said before converting into a werewolf and joining the ongoing brawl.

However, on Sunday evening the ambience seemed to have taken a 180 degree turn as all students started to realize that classes begin on Monday.

“It was so beautiful to imagine that Sciences Po would just involved drinking cheap alcohol and running around public parks screaming profanity and enacting sexually inappropriate gestures in front of families. It was utopic,” one student said through tears as she teetered on the edge of the sidewalk outside of Bar St. Maurice.

“Now excuse me, I have to order another shot of a cheap French liquor whose name I can’t pronounce,” she said before stumbling away.

We hope that the wonderfully inebriated tone that started with Integration Week will last for the rest of the semester.