Renzi Teaches College 101 Using Only His 'C's

By: Chelsea Weiss

Posted: 9/8/05

With boyish good looks and a flamboyant attitude, self-proclaimed "Real World has-been," Dan Renzi of "Real World Miami" addressed a crowd at the Student Union theatre last night.
"I wanted to see somebody famous," said Chantal Thompson, a 1st-semester economics major. "To our age group he is almost as famous as anybody."
A nine year veteran of the reality television industry, Renzi discussed more realistic topics ranging from owning a credit card to fending off chlamydia.
Renzi dismissed common inspirational phrases such as "just be yourself" and "you'll find your place" to make it through college. He narrowed down all pertinent information to living in collegiate cohabitation to words that began with the letter C.
As a freshman at Rutgers University, a politically correct, left wing college, according to Renzi, Sexual Awareness Week resulted in a campus wide effort to not only accept a gay neighbor, but to make him your best friend. Renzi believes this adherence to political correctness falls far from the truth.
"The glory of being American is that you can be as racist as you want," Renzi said. "You do not teach people by telling them what to do or think- you let them think on their own." Harping on his first C, culture, scrawled across a poster board, Renzi stepped back to squeal, "Like, I have props, how cool is that?"
According to Renzi, we all have prejudices and no one has the ability to be completely impartial to everyone.
"I will always judge people with mullets," he said.
His tone of speech turned serious, reminiscent of his on-screen battles with Flora or Veronica of "Real World."
"When political correctness is shoved down your throat, you're going to avoid a subject completely," Renzi said.
Culture will push a freshman toward protesting against "every subject imaginable," but you're allowed to make up your own mind about how you want to feel or speak, he said.
Learning from experience, Renzi advised students not to run from the cops. Arrested for evading police on a celebratory jaunt to roast marshmallows at Rutgers, he learned "rent-a-cops are real cops," and suggested freshmen realize the same.
Renzi inhaled a deep, theatrical breath, before detailing what he describes as one of the most important aspects of young life - credit. Having single-handedly ruined his own credit and paying for his sophomore year on MasterCard after his parents found out he was gay, Renzi detailed the advertisements for credit cards as a vicious predator. He outlined that college students should only be allowed one credit card, which he learned when he processed credit applications in Kansas City.
"Set a limit and attach it to your parents account," he said. Calling to raise your limit on spending will only ultimately ruin your credit report, "because the credit card companies know you'll spend up to that limit and only pay the minimum." He also warned against most American Express cards that require payment in full.
Cocktails can lead to a myriad of unfortunate events, though most of which are not "the end of the world," Renzi said. Renzi took blood tests for STDs at a health center and wondered why people are still contracting AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases when the equipment to prevent it is available. Condoms can prevent college students from contracting various diseases, he said, and warned cocktails often create circumstances in which condoms are not used. Renzi stamped his foot and shouted as he realized two other 'C' words, cocaine and crystal meth could be used in this category.
The most prolific statement Renzi said concerned class. "If you don't like the class, you won't like it as a job," he said, "if you don't like what you're doing for homework, you're not going to want to do it everyday." Renzi said he was saddened by people who "lived for the weekend" and believed that their day-to-day work was not really "living." He quoted the common mantra, "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans."
"You do have your own life, you focus on yourself and then you find these problems, and you're at a college therapist, and then taking Zoloft, and you forget the whole point of why you're here, you're here because you're lucky," he said.
"So have a good time," he said. "But try waking up and saying to yourself 'today I am going to class' as opposed to 'today I have to go to class' and you'll see the difference that it makes," Renzi said.
Renzi also conceded a few "Real World" secrets; that Coral and Veronica are just as bad as they seem on TV and though just being a homosexual was wild enough to get you on the show once, "now you have to be gay and crazy," he said, which occurs from time to time as Renzi looses his temper on various reality show stints such as "The Gauntlet" and "The Inferno."
"On the challenges he was one of my favorites, he seems very funny and genuine," said Danielle Hajjar, a 1st-semester physical therapy major.
He admitted many people on the show "feed into the machinery and play the game."
The star struck crowd filled the aisles as they waited to pose for pictures with Renzi after his lecture. Though flanked by adoring fans, and often stopped by strangers, he insisted reality stars are just like anyone else, that he lived happily before the "Real World" and that with editing and a soundtrack anyone's life can be cinematic.