Depressing: All Known Areas of Study Just Become Staring at Excel Spreadsheets Sooner or Later

Sad! Preliminary reports are showing that no matter what area of study you choose to pursue, you will end up staring at Excel spreadsheets sooner or later.

“When I first came to Penn, I thought I had the world at my fingertips,” Clyde Orear (C ‘22) recalled, eyes watering. “But it turns out all they teach you here is how to use Analysis ToolPak.”

Everyone's saying it: if you can’t visualize the annual rainfall in Nicaragua or plot the frequency of words that show up in “Othello,” you’re dead meat in the cold jaws of today’s modern world.

The knowledge that their future consists only of tediously organizing numbers for hours on end has caused many students to fall into existential despair.

“Meaningless! It’s all meaningless!” Anna Nolan (C ‘21) yelled as yet another assignment asked her to make a pie chart.

“There is no god,” Frank Powell (C ‘22) muttered, curled up into a ball in the corner of the Moelis Family Grand Reading Room. "Just big data. Just big data. Just big data.”

While a majority of students take issue with the fact that the only marketable skill in the 21st century is fitting a linear trend line, some have — strangely enough — resigned themselves to their fates.

“Okay, this actually isn’t too bad,” Taylor Brown (E ‘22) commented, fingers flying across the keyboard. "I, for one, welcome our new Excel overlords."