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CHAPTER

ONE

SUMMER

PYSC 100

Fall 2024

Monday, Wednesday, Friday

Kinsmen University

Department of Psychology

Course Syllabus

Instructor: Dr. Talia Garcia

Teaching Assistant: Lincoln Kennedy

Required Textbook: Science of the Mind: An Introduction to Psychological Principles. Third edition. 2022. T. Garcia. K. Landry. L. Kennedy. Petticoat Publishing.

Optional Textbook (Strongly Recommended): The War of Emotions: Fear, Anger, and Loathing. Second Edition. 2020. K. Landry. T. Garcia. Petticoat Publishing.

Course Description

This course was created to break you, to help you understand all parts of yourself: the good, the bad, and the parts you’d rather keep locked inside. If you progress along the semester and don’t drop out after the first month, you will transform. You will rebuild yourself with a deeper understanding of your inner psyche. To succeed in this course, you must plunge into the darkest parts of your mind and connect with the world around you. Psychology is the scientific study of the human experience, and mastering yourself is key. You will gain insight into your true identity and apply that knowledge to gain a deeper understanding of your life and what drives the behavior of those around you. You will probably fail this course. Welcome to Kinsmen University. Welcome to Psychology 101.

Dr. Garcia’s high heels click against the marble floor to the front of the lecture hall as everyone—at least, those who have read the course outline—immediately hushes their conversation. She’s a tiny woman with an extraordinary presence and a reputation that precedes her. I barely see her, so small against the vastness of Smith Hall, the university’s most famous lecture hall.

I’ve seen her before on the news, heard her on crime podcasts as the leading authority on child psychology. Her photo is on the wall in my father’s study next to his desk—although, she was much younger in that photo. My father knew her; she was his supervisor while completing his PhD program at this very school, and he worked with her off and on for years after.

My breathing stalls as she takes her place on the podium in front of the room. Her salt and pepper dark hair is pulled back, and an elegant silver streak marks her forehead. She rises to the podium; behind her, a grand black curtain hangs over marble walls. While this room has a modern feel, this institution is nearly three hundred years old, and I wonder how many students have sat here listening to her.

I can’t believe we are actually here. It feels like yesterday we were sipping wine in Paris, riding bikes in Belgium, and scooting around to different hotels in Amsterdam. My best friend Dani and I traveled through Europe for the summer after doing a year at community college in our hometown. I only got my scholarship letter in June after thinking I didn’t get in. Oddly enough, it was days after my father died. Dani deferred a year so we could go to school together. And now, here we are.

She lifts herself on a riser and clears her throat. What’s left of any murmur of the two hundred people seated immediately silences as this tiny Italian woman commands the room.

You can hear a pin drop.

Dani elbows me. “Holy shit, she seems intense.”

I elbow her back as a few people turn and glare. “Shh, Dani. We can’t talk right now.”

People pay thousands of dollars for their kids to attend this private university—which rivals Harvard and Yale in prestige—and many attend just to hear this tiny woman speak.

Three screens light up on the wall behind her. One giant wall of screens, unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Those dreaded words are written in various ways all across them.

Tiny, large, intertwined, as if taunting me.

You will fail.

As if she knows I’m not good enough to be here. That I am a fraud, thinking I can follow in my father’s footsteps because, deep down, I know I’m not smart enough and he must have pulled strings to get me in here. I’m nothing like him.

“Welcome to Kinsmen University.” Dr. Garcia’s voice booms across the lecture hall. She seems ageless, timeless in her beauty.

I’m not sure how old she is, but she’s at least pushing seventy, given she was at least twenty-five years older than my father.