“My boy, we are pilgrims in an unholy land.” — Dr. Henry Jones Sr., on watching a Nazi book burning in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

I am a recent college graduate and a young Republican. The happiest moment in my short political life so far has been receiving a piece of paper, freeing me from the encroaching liberal bonfire of the modern college campus. What I’ve learned from my time in academia is probably not the most conventional lesson, but it is the most practical: don’t be an activist; just get through it. Accept that college and university is not a friendly place to express counter-cultural views, focus on strengthening your conservative beliefs, and get that diploma.

What got me through college was keeping my ideological head down and a healthy dose of underhanded sarcasm. Let me be perfectly honest: no one likes the campus activist — be he from the right or the left — or the kid who argues with the professor. Seriously. Just keep your mouth shut and parrot back whatever he/she/xhe wants to hear. Although it may be romantic to stand up for one’s beliefs in the middle of the lecture and tell-off that smug liberal professor, please don’t. It’s not a good look and, more importantly, the guy you’re laying into also grades your papers.