If you are like me, you may have seen flyers around Grand Valley Sate University for tonight’s Life Raft Debate. Sadly, it’s not what you think it is. I know; I was prepared to take the anti-life raft stance, too.

“Let’s make life rafts a thing of the past!”

No, the debate has nothing to do with whether life rafts should be outlawed or not. Instead, the presentation will focus on the validity and impending importance of various majors and academic disciplines.

The premise is this: 2012 is upon us and the world begins to fall apart, just as predicted in the movie “The Day After Tomorrow.” Because the apocalypse has to end in a massive flood (it’s what Noah would have wanted), you somehow end up with the last life raft. It has room for you and one other person of some educational merit, because you clearly have none.

Disregarding the fact that you are being unbelievably selfish by taking up one of the only two seats left for survival, and also the fact that a third person could have been saved had you not brought X-Box 360 along with you, the whole point of the exercise is to determine which education program is the most valuable.

While it may seem obvious to simply pick a member of the opposite sex (optimistically, an attractive and fertile one) to ensure repopulation, the whole hypothetical aspect should be once again brought up. Just think to yourself, “This is an imaginary scenario. I should really just relax.”

So the question then becomes, “Which academic discipline should I save?” Your first choice will likely be whatever major you have chosen to pursue, so you bring a professor from your field into your raft while the undeclared students sit by themselves in their boats of indecisiveness, drifting out to a lonely sea.

Choosing your own subject of study may not be the smartest decision, not because accounting and business management aren’t important (Enron showed us that they totally are), but because other fields may be a tad more useful to rebuilding an entire world culture.

Engineering, for example, or creative writing.

It will certainly be a fascinating debate to sit through, watching a wide span of minds at GVSU discuss why their department deserves to be saved.

The best part is that the audience will ultimately decide what field deserves the spot on the hypothetical raft. It will likely be measured by some battle of the bands applause-o-meter, so bring your clapping A-game. And yes, it is totally legit to vote for the professor that hands out candy right before the event. In fact, that’s my strategy.

The event will be held Monday from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the Cook-DeWitt Center. If you have class, skip it, because it probably won’t be that important when the whole world has flooded. Hypothetically speaking, that is.

[email protected]