i will never be a college student
so I’ve decided that’s it, I will never be that college student as it seems we are supposed to be. When I say college student, I’m not talking about scholastic aims and achievement, I’m not talking about balancing work, school, and social life, nothing like that. I’m talking about the attitude and culture that we are led to believe accompanies the early 20’s life. Let me explain…
The other day, I’m sitting in my Poli Sci class, a class of about 300 students, and everythings going fine, until this kid from a few rows from the front gets up while our professor is speaking, goes to the aisle in the middle of the room, and sits on the floor. He proceeds to roll up his sweater for a pillow and lay down, then open his slick wal-mart sponsored laptop and begins playing solitare. I’m sure he sees it as being free spirited, almost hippie-esque in his endeavor, I see it as the stupid “wanna be berkley” mentality. What he fails to realize is that socially that is unacceptable. Respectfully that is unacceptable. But for some reason, in college, since we’re college kids, that is acceptable? If so, no thanks, I will never be that guy.
Tonight, I go to see a good friend perform in an orchestra. Realizing it’s not as formal as Andrea Rieu, I forgoe the tux but still dress nice enough, and roll in to watch the concert and coming in 10 minutes late, I slip in the back and sit down about midway in. To my right a girl pulls out a laptop, in the middle of the piece, and begins typing her paper, loud enough that everyone in the viscinity offers her an incredulous look seeming to plead “are you kidding me?” appearantly, that’s all good cause she’s a college student. Most of the students in attendance could hardly find anything more than shorts and a t-shirt to wear in. Now I’m no lover of fashion, nor am I very formal, but etiquette has been around for a while, why the heck do people think that in college there’s no need to bother? People interrupting you midway through a piece to get to their seat rather than waiting patiently until it would be appropriate to walk in front of an entire row of people. And it goes on and on and on. Why is it that we are either supposed to or permissed to forget everything our mothers taught us about how to act and what is appropriate as soon as we hit the college campus?
Regardless, I’ve found many reasons which have forced me to admit I’ll never be a “college student” I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t go to Berkley.