Professor Jerry Hathaway (Atherton) meets high school student Mitch Taylor (Jarret) at the school's science fair. He informs Mitch that he has been admitted to Pacific Technical University, where he will room with physics "legend" Chris Knight (Kilmer). Hathaway is secretly developing the laser for the CIA, but instead of doing the work himself he has his unpaid students do it, while misappropriating the project funding to remodel his house. Arriving on campus, Mitch meets Chris and is disappointed to learn that he is an irreverent slacker who spends his time pulling elaborate high tech pranks (such as covering the dorm floor in ice to go skating). Mitch also meets Jordan (Meyrink), a hyperkinetic female student, "Ick" Ikagami, a brilliant and affable foil to Chri's antics, and the mysterious Lazlo Hollyfeld (Jon Gries), a middle-aged man who seems to be living in Mitch's closet. Hathaway's sycophantic graduate assistant Kent (Prescott) becomes hostile when Hathaway puts Mitch in