Summer Course Teaches How to Talk to Other People Again

Texas A&M University is making national headlines after announcing a summer course on how to interact with other people as life begins to return to normal after the pandemic. The course, Relearning What it Means to be Human, is listed as PSYC 108 in the 2021-2022 course catalog. The course has already reached in-person capacity, but the university is considering creating a free online course companion for students who weren’t lucky enough to snag a seat.

The course follows in the footsteps of other smash hits such as Yale University’s The Science of Well-Being, which teaches its students how to live happier and more fulfilling lives. Texas A&M’s Relearning What it Means to be Human hopes to reacclimate students to their pre-pandemic social lives by undoing the psychological damage of being stuck in an endless time loop of solitude since March 2020.

“For the past year, I’ve just been telling people about how terrible my life is every time they ask me how my day is. I know that no one actually cares, but I can’t seem to stop myself,” sophomore Davis York said. “How have I gotten so bad at small talk?”

“Personally, I want to learn how to do a convincing fake laugh again,” senior Amanda Glaston said. “I haven’t had to pretend that a very dull conversation was actually funny in over a year. A cashier made a bland joke to me last week and I couldn’t even pretend.”

Demand for this class and others like it has spiked following the wave of vaccinations across Brazos County and the prospect of fully in-person classes for the Fall 2021 semester. PSYC 108 claims to reinstill two decades worth of learned social skills in its students, but for many of its students, that is still not much to work with.

 

— Ring Chunks