It’s the end of the semester, and that means one thing (besides stress, anxiety, calling your parents and telling them your life is falling apart): it’s reflection time. Thankfully, we were blessed with the most drawn out Presidential nominee race in recent memory. It was fun while it lasted, but now it’s over, leaving America high and dry with humor til November. But regardless of all of those shenanigans, the question now is, “What have we learned?”

You know, our politics and culture can teach us more about ourselves than we’d like to think. For example, if you’re a Congressman or some other elected official who is not Martha Stewart, it’s probably best that you shy away from insider trading. If you have a nationally recognized conservative radio show, sometimes it’s best to keep a thought to yourself… or you’ll learn your lesson the hard way. And, for sportsmanship purposes, don’t hunt down your opponents with bounties like they’re Han Solo and Chewbacca.

Here are some other lesson plans from the Big Picture that we all can take home from Spring 2012:

The No-No List if you’re running for President: Do not be accused of sexual harassment; if you’re going to call out a solid three things on national television, make sure you can count to three; never say anything on these lists; and get NASA’s approval before you start making intergalactic plans.

Being Joseph Kony must really, really suck: Who could forget ‘Kony 2012’? Apparently most viewers of the most-watched viral video in history did. But not the United States Special Forces: the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army is now on the run in the Central African Republic. That says something about viral videos: we might have stopped caring a week after we watched the documentary but now its cyber-effects are translating into real-time results. And, even then, we have mentally moved on. Have you seen Diane Keaton on Colbert yet? How weird, right?

You won’t like the Internet when it’s angry: SOPA, CISPA, Bills-as-acronyms, etc. The United States federal government has been trolling the World Wide Web hardcore the past few months. Besides Facebook and Google being hounded by the FCC for knowing everything about you, Congress has made Internet law and order a priority this term (for whatever the reason; search: trillion dollar student debt, trillion dollar deficit, overall shittiness). As a result, Wikipedia shut down, Mozilla Firefox was disabled and Redditors were blocked from their beloved memes and gifs. The Internet is like a college student: it’ll blackout if need be.

The side-effects of ‘Linsanity’ may include: Twitter nausea, racist ESPN diarrhea, a season-ending pain in your left knee, a new frenemy named Mike D’Antoni and a short-lived mural for you on East Second Street and Avenue B. Oh, and eventual death at the hands of the Miami Heat.

Ryan Gosling can stop global warming: He is the modern-day Brutus; he is bringing feminism back; he saved an unapologetic British journalist from a cab; he stopped a fight and then went continued his Good Samaritan stroll through the City; and no woman in the world dislikes him. Please, someone send this guy to Washington. Please.

Hopefully, these new lessons will stay with you, even after the post-finals parties that will soon start off the summer. And, if you forget everything like all your other syllabi this semester, don’t worry: we’ll still be here in the fall.

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