Jackpot! Daniel Martinez becomes Trinity’s first octuple-major student

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Alyssa White

Junior Adam Garza donning a pretend mustache.

This piece is entirely satirical. Read the rest of our April Fool’s edition, the Trinibonian, here.

Daniel Martinez, sophomore accounting, ancient Mediterranean studies, anthropology, applied chemistry, applied physics, art, art history, and biochemistry octuple-major, has always had a fascination for, well, everything. In high school, he competed in Academic Decathlon as a one-man team, an experience that proved revelatory.

“I had always thought that one day I’d have to choose between the arts and sciences, between chemistry, literature, music, history, and all the others. Competing in decathlon, I realized that I didn’t have to choose — I could do them all,” Martinez said.

While eight majors already sounds impressive, Martinez does not plan to stop there. Instead, he hopes to do something no one else has ever done — earn every single major at his college.

“The current plan is to go in alphabetical order, completing all 58 majors Trinity has to offer. I guess you would say it’s kind of like with Pokémon, I just gotta catch ‘em all,” Martinez said.

Martinez has maximized his schedule by taking a class during every time slot offered, amounting to an exhausting 42 credit hours. To be able to handle this workload, Martinez has found a way to capitalize on the time he previously would have spent asleep.

“Instead of sleeping, I continuously ingest these caffeine pills specially ordered from Cambridge that were developed by a group of chemistry majors from Harvard. I don’t think I’ve slept since I started taking them. I also make sure to always stomp on the seal when I pass it. It’s a myth that it delays when you graduate, that’s just what the high-achievers want you to believe so you don’t gain its power,” Martinez said.

Additionally, Martinez’s ability to multitask has proven instrumental to his academic success. He taught himself to type with only one hand and owns two computers so that he can work on multiple assignments simultaneously.

“When I’m doing my work, I set the two computers up side by side, so that my left eye is reading the left screen and my right eye the right one. I’ve found that, in this way, I can split my brain space evenly between the two assignments and have my left hand working on whatever assignment is on the left computer and my right hand working on the right one,” Martinez said.

Martinez is currently working on developing a device that would allow him to be in several different locations at the same time. He hopes to have it completed by the time he graduates from Trinity so that he can attend medical, law, art school, and graduate programs for all of his majors at once.

“Ideally, I could cast a digital projection of myself to attend classes at each school while I monitor the feeds from each ‘me’ from my desk. Hmm, now that I’m thinking about it, I should work on a way to extend the number of hours in a day too,” Martinez said.

What Martinez plans to do with all of these degrees, however, is a little less clear.

“I haven’t really thought about what I want to do post-medical/law/graduate/art school,” Martinez said. “I don’t think I can imagine my life outside of school. Is being a professional student an option?”