Studying Bridge
Every year Austin College
offers a January Term during which each student takes an intensive
three-week course. One is encouraged to study outside of one’s
major if possible; JanTerm is in many ways very representative of
AC’s focus on the liberal arts. These classes can be academically
serious, actually serious (one was called Death and Dying
) or fun
to one extent or another. In 1997 I was serious
and studied
J.R.R. Tolkien; in 1998 I decided to have fun and took a course in
bridge. I figured that I’d taken golf in the fall and with bridge
in my repertoire I should be well-prepared for the life of leisure I
imagined I would one day lead.
I studied bridge under Professors Jim Knowlton and Truett Cates (both of the German faculty). It was a remarkably rigorous course for one which was about a game: every evening we had homework which consisted of playing online games; we had to get our rankings to a certain point; we had to play in a local league’s tournaments at least twice; and the game itself requires no little bit of skill to play.
All in all, it was a great time. I can’t really remember all the details of bridge bidding conventions, so I’d be a rotten player now, but it was a great introduction to trick-taking games. My favourites now would be whist and tarocchi. If it hadn’t been for that bridge class, I might never have found them.
