Campus Life

Give us some credit

On a recent trip to the grocery store, I was behind two older ladies while walking through the produce isle. I wasn’t intentionally trying to pay attention to what it was they were saying, but when you are trying to get some Clementine’s that they have stopped in front of, then it is an inevitable thing. They said something that really bothered me, and I almost had a response for them, but I figured that standing in between the Clementine’s and Poinsettia’s  was not a good place to stick up for myself, as well as other college students. “Kids these days have no idea about anything. They don’t do anything, nor know the value of working hard.”  I know that everybody is entitled to their opinion, but when a generalization is made like that, it makes me angry because all college students are not lazy nor do we not know anything. I mean give us some credit.

 We are a society that is continuously focusing upon the negative aspects of everyday life. No longer do we try to seek the positives in what people do, nor do we give them credit when they do things that really make an impact upon the society in which we live.  If we only focus upon the negatives, then that is all we are going to see. For example, when it came time for the “Tiger Den” playground to be built, a majority of the people working on it consisted of those from the university. We took time out of our busy schedules of classes, homework, work, and practices to help make a difference, so that children in our neighborhoods could have a safe, fun place to play: something that all kids deserve, something that we had.

 Another misconception that I feel as though older people have is that all we worry about is going out and partying and getting intoxicated; that every weekend is the same for all college students. Now, I am not going to lie, my friends and I like to go out for a fun night but we also know how to sit in and have real conversations about the world in which we live. This past weekend, from Thursday on actually, alcohol did not touch the  lips of anybody that stepped foot in our apartment, and we had conversations about anything and  everything that is going on in this world; both the positives and the negatives.

 The best conversations came on Saturday night and continued to Sunday morning.  As ten of us sat in the living room, under  our white Christmas lights and colorful tree, we just talked. I don’t really know how it all started, but before I knew it we were having a discussion about how we could make the world a better place, global warming, the current administration, and the war in Iraq (just to name a few). You know, I think that people would be shocked to find out how much we, as College students know about what is going on today. The things that were being spoken from people, ranging from eighteen to twenty two years of age, were just amazing. I wish I could have secretly have video taped it to show people that we are not dumb. That we have an opinion; that we care. We care what is happening to us, because it is us who are going to one day bring children into this world and we want the best for them.

 Some of the best thoughts consisted of wanting everybody to just stop pointing fingers at people because things are not perfect. We have to work together to make this a better place. I think that we can learn a lot from the movie “Pay It Forward”. For those of you whom don’t know about this movie, it is just about how if one person does one thing nice for three people, and then those three people did three nice things for three other people and so forth and so on, then our world would be a better place. You know, we have to lead by example, and we can’t give up on people just because we think one way about them. If we just focus on the negatives and give up, then how are we to change the world?

 I know that we, as college students, do some stupid things and I can understand why some people think the way the do. But remember, that just like everybody else, at times we get really bogged down with work and just have a bad day; we are all entitled to those. We also may not mean to do things that make you think one way about us. Just because you may have had a bad experience with some, doesn’t mean that you should give up on the rest. Before you pass a generalization about us, please remember that we know more than you may think, and we are still growing. We are entitled to mistakes here and there, because that is how we learn. Learning takes place through experience and we can all learn something from one another if we just lead by example.

“To believe in men is the first step toward helping them”