Alex Pedersen

I met a new friend today.

I was sitting in the hallway of Roosevelt Hall before a class, bored and anxious for the class to begin. One of my classmates, a Korean guy, was sitting near me and was talking to a Korean friend of his in their native tongue.

And then a thought struck me. Not a profound one, not an unusual one. In fact, it’s so mundane that I don’t even usually realize that I think it: I wanted to meet someone. I wanted to talk to someone I’ve never talked to before, to build a connection with someone for the first time.

So I followed my whim and struck up a conversation with the two about the few Korean words I knew. Unfortunately, all of them were dirty words I could barely pronounce taught to me by a Korean-American friend of mine, but I connected anyhow. The new friend and I exchanged our names and she taught me how to say, “nice to meet you,” in Korean.

College is naturally a time of meeting new people, and we need to squeeze that social tangerine for all of its friendly juices. Emporia may not be a big school, but it is almost impossible to know everyone on campus. During this point in our lives, it is important to be bold and meet as many friends as you can.

This doesn’t mean that we have to try to become the most popular person on campus, but that we should not be scared of meeting new people.

After meeting a new friend today, I walked away feeling happy to make a new friendship and feeling accomplished, as if it’s something that doesn’t happen every day.

And that is because it doesn’t. Many people, including myself, live in a bubble of individualism. We don’t need to talk to people we don’t know and they don’t need to talk to us, so we don’t want to go out of our way.

Unfortunately, that is a silly way to think. If someone thought that way their entire life, they wouldn’t make any friends at all, so why think like that for even a second? There is so much we can learn from each other, but it is impossible to learn if you never meet the teacher.

It is also a great thing that our school has such a large number of international students. Meeting international students allows for sharing of cultures from both the international student and the American student, and that is never a bad thing. We have come to college to learn to be worldly and learning about other cultures is just that. We must have the courage to burst our ethnocentric bubble.

I’ve made hundreds of friends in college, and I think I will only make more. I also think that I will hold on to some of those friends I have met in college well into my adult life.

After college, meeting friends will be totally different. Depending on your job, you may end up working with the same people in the same department every day. It’s hard to find new friends when you’re stuck in an office doing work for several hours a day.

But we are in college, the most sociable learning institution possible. I, for example, have classes where I don’t know all of my peers. I don’t even know all of the people in my major. Although the school is small, there are always more people that we can get to know. All you need is a smile and a friendly demeanor.

So the next time that you are sitting in a hallway alone, bored and wanting to talk to someone, do it. The odds are that they will talk back to you, you’ll find out you have something in common, and you will make a new friend.

Like Benjamin Franklin never said, a friend found is a friend earned.

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Harrison George

I have never been more proud to be an Emporia State student than I am right now. I attended the debate on abortion, which was held on April 5th, and was blown away by the amount of professionalism and respect that I witnessed.

From both sides of the argument, there were thought-out, well-researched answers to questions that are not usually easy to answer. I could genuinely see that the everyone involved was there to educate as well as learn, and not just promote their own hard-set ideals.

Since coming to college I had been waiting and hoping for an event like this. I wanted to see people’s opinions put to the test. I think the most important goals of attending college, in addition to receiving a formal education, is to have your views challenged by others.

Only when challenged can we truly realize what we feel. When we defend our views to others we are defending them to ourselves as well, and if the logic is strong enough we will be satisfied, and we will continue supporting that belief.

If there are holes in our logic then we must reevaluate our reliance on this viewpoint. Perhaps we follow that view because we were raised to or because it is aligned with another stronger belief such as religion. Whatever the reason, this journey of self-discovery is one of the most important experiences we can attain from college.

Many of us are afraid to admit doubt about our own ideals. It is better to convince ourselves we are right than to risk not really knowing how we feel. But once we admit we are unsure we have started down a path of new knowledge, one that will hopefully lead us to a better more satisfying answer.

That is what I felt the goal of this debate was: to help us all create a satisfying viewpoint on a very complex issue.  It did not matter that we all left the debate in agreement; many did not. What was important was that we were able to form our own opinions and feel confident about them.

I must applaud the individuals that took part in the actual debate. They all did an excellent job of remaining on topic and not letting emotion seep into the issues that were discussed. I was impressed at the obvious amounts of research that both sides did in order to prepare for their speeches. As an audience member, that showed me they cared enough about this issue to put serious time and effort into preparation.

The work and style of the moderator, Leo Arellano, was also very helpful in setting the mood of open-mindedness that the event was trying to promote. He remained unaligned throughout the event, doing a skillful job of moving the conversation along and avoiding serious dead ends.

Of course the event did not go without its hiccups. At any event such as this especially one based on such a controversial subject matter there are bound to be people speaking out of turn.  Overall, when this did take place, the moderator and the speakers did a good job of rerouting the course of the dialogue to more even ground.

This is the kind of event we need to see more of on campus. I would love to see this kind of thing occurring on a monthly basis. Abortion is just one of hundreds of issues that we should be addressing on campus.  I think that if something as hotly debated and controversial as abortion can be discussed successfully on campus, that shows we could discuss just about anything.

People come to college for a variety of reasons.  We come to be educated, to improve our social skills, and to prepare ourselves for the outside world. But one reason that is rarely discussed is coming to school to have our views challenged and our opinions expressed. This should be a foremost goal in any credible university. Just as an unexamined life is not worth living, an unexamined viewpoint is not worth defending.

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About two weeks ago, a friend and I had the pleasure of giving a presentation to a freshman class on a topic I feel very strongly about—studying abroad.

The presentation went relatively smooth and my perception was that the class enjoyed it. Maybe they were interested in studying abroad, or maybe they thought it was a nice break from the normal classroom routine, in either case, they all seemed to pay attention.

Afterwards, I was satisfied and excited about how the students seemed to be listening to what we said. I cannot remember a time in my entire collegiate career when a student group or RSO came into my classroom to talk to my fellow students and I about what the group was all about.

This thought stuck with me, and I find it relevant to use this article as a kind of question box. Why doesn’t this type of thing happen more often? Not just study abroad but any RSO or student group. Maybe I have had a perpetual case of “wrong place, wrong time,” but I feel like at least one or two of my classes would involve something like this at one point.

It seems to me that the answer to this question of why this doesn’t happen is more complex than it looks on the surface, but something easy remedied.

The easiest answer is that professors have a strict syllabus and list of coursework they have to cover in any given semester. That makes sense. But I think that a professor’s job (especially in freshmen-dominated classes) is not only to teach the subject material for a class, but also to introduce students to the extracurricular opportunities involving the subject material.

Why couldn’t one political advocacy group talk to a political science class about their RSO or student group? Why not have members of Quivira talk to an English class about creative writing?

It seems like this would help students connect what they are learning about with real world events and inform them on how they can get involved in an organization they feel passionately about. It is just my opinion, but this would help them learn in the classroom setting as well. Getting students passionate about a topic, which then helps them in their studies is a win-win situation in my book.

I’m not saying that there should be a presentation on a different RSO for every class period, all I am suggesting is maybe once or twice a semester, a different on-campus group speaks to a class about joining or supporting their organization.

I think, ultimately, the problem is that RSOs and on-campus groups don’t ask professors to present because they think professors are too busy teaching the coursework to allow it, and since no one asks the professors, professors stick to their coursework. This may be presumptuous, but I think it is close to the truth.

So, my “mission statement” is this—if you are in an on-campus group or RSO, ask your professors if giving a presentation in his or her class on the subject the group advocates would be something they would be interested in. You never know if the professor would support something like this if you don’t ask, and the worse they can say is no.

Our campus has many noteworthy organizations that cover a wide array of topics. One of the few elements they all have in common is that they are all always looking for new members. By promoting their group and their events in class they have a direct audience in which to appeal to and hopefully generate interest in what they are doing.

Try it. A 10-minute presentation may be just the catalyst some students need to get on board. When your group grows, awareness grows with it.

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Last Thursday, the Granada played host to the provocatively titled Lectures on Liberty with “In Praise of Sweatshops,” given by Suffolk University economist Benjamin Powell.

In short, Powell’s assessment was that sweatshops are worth the sweat. And that they aren’t exploitative at all – they are a boon to their employees and the developing countries that host them.

The wages at sweatshops are generally higher than the wages offered at other jobs available to workers in the third world. What are those jobs? Jobs tilling fields by hand, full time panhandling and, in some cases, even prostitution. For many, sweatshop labor is a step up in the world. Workers are making more than they would were they not employed by outsourced retail corporations like Nike and the Gap.

Maybe sweatshops aren’t as bad as they appear at first glance.  After all, people generally do not line up around the block in an effort to land a job that exploits them.

While I don’t doubt Powell’s basic argument that third world workers have fewer options than workers in the U.S. and that sweatshop labor beats panhandling or prostitution, sweatshop workers are still logging long hours with no opportunity for advancement in unsafe working conditions, with infrequent breaks for wages that are not always adequate to live on. Some of these workers are children and pregnant women. Meanwhile, as of 2007, Nike’s co-founder and former CEO Phil Knight had an estimated net worth of $9.8 billion.

What these workers need is not simply a job but one that enables them to feed and house themselves properly. While corporations like Nike and the Gap are not technically enslaving anybody, they still have their workers “over a barrel.” The fact is, if you work in a factory making Nike shoes, you will probably never make enough money to own a pair.

The price of items like clothing, shoes and electronics have dropped precipitously in the last few decades thanks in part to our friend the sweatshop worker. Rather than pocket the savings and allocate the money somewhere else (like say debt repayment) Americans have simply upped the ante on what is considered necessary – consuming more and more. Why settle for one T.V. when you can have a second in the kitchen and a third for Junior’s room?

That got me thinking…is cheapness all there is? Is the object of earning money simply the accumulation of as many goods as possible as inexpensively as possible? Can someone paying well over $100 for a pair of tennis shoes or four bucks for a cup of coffee manage to pay a bit more in order to ensure safe working conditions and adequate wages for sweatshop workers?

Thoughts such as this lead to questions about the nature of our economy. America likes to claim that its economy is based on the free market with full Darwinistic “survival of the fittest” procedures in place. But if corporations can simply outsource their work to the poorer countries and reap the savings, then it’s not really a free or balanced economic environment. It has become less about fairness and more about which companies can exploit their resources and workers the best.

It is hard not to feel aggrieved by the morbid wealth inequality between the third world and the U.S. and while Americans may not be the cause of third world impoverishment, they do not seem to care much about being a part of the solution either.

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As winter resigns and spring is ushered in, colds and the flu take a back seat to another type of disease.  It is just as contagious and even more harmful than the common cold.  It’s like mono, amnesia and A.D.D. all rolled into one – senioritis.

With only six weeks left, seniors are finding it harder and harder every day to stay focused on the matters at hand. While school is getting more challenging as we step closer to finals, attention spans are shrinking at an alarming rate. Compounded with the increasingly beautiful weather outside it only makes it that much harder to stay seated in class all day long.

It is not just class that can suffer due to senioritis.  Involvement in clubs and activities has experienced a noticeable wane over the last few months.

While many students still complete their obligations to school and organizations to the fullest necessary extent, it is the overall mindset that has shifted. Seniors are finding it harder to feel motivated to stay involved because they know in a few weeks they will no longer be part of the ESU community.

I know my class is not the first to suffer from a lack of motivation during the home stretch of school. Senioritis is something we have been warned against since the start of high school. Teachers and parents both try to prepare students for the eventual feelings of restlessness that occur once the end is in sight.

So what might cause senioritis? I think it stems from the realization that college, the thing you spent the last four or five years stressing and obsessing over, is finally drawing to a close. The brain is filled with relief but also pangs of nervousness about what is to come.  Attentions shift from school to whatever challenges or adventures come next.

Most students I know entered into college directly after high school. That means we have been in school for 18 straight years, give or take a few. Many people do not know how to prepare for the dramatic shift from academic life to the “real world.”

The amount of anxiety we face post-college says something about the kind of education we are receiving. While we are being adequately educated on an academic level, I do not feel that enough time is spent preparing students for life after school.

ESU already provides numerous services to help usher seniors into the business world. Job fairs and resume-building workshops are abundantly found around campus. But they are under utilized for the most part, due to lack of strong advertising. Schools could work harder with seniors to emphasize the notion that life will be changing drastically for them in a few short months.

Students too should work to become more proactive in battling senioritis. Taking large steps to prepare for graduation and all that follows will help ease them into the transition, and make it less shocking once the big day comes.

At the same time students should stay dedicated to their work in school. We all know that the best way to make time fly is by staying busy. If we continue to stay deeply involved in our school and our activities it could help prevent some of the restless “hurry up and wait” feeling that seem to accumulate around the end of every school year.

Senioritis is a naturally occurring event. It only makes sense to start feeling excited that one chapter of life is ending and other is soon beginning.  But we can all do more to make this a tie of productivity and excitement, instead of stress and unprepared consequences.

By working more closely with the school and utilizing all the resources that are available, seniors can learn to enjoy the final months of their year without succumbing to the symptoms of seniorities.

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We are a generation of electricity junkies.
Every time I go into the library, I see at least a few people surfing Facebook, writing messages to their friends and stalking for potential ones. I see people reading news and playing games online. Even today before writing this article, I took a test online.
The internet is all around us and can be incorporated in nearly everything we do. Our generation will “Google” something before they will use a book to research it. Hell, even the capitol of our state was named Google for a month.
And, as with any new dominant form of media, it has changed our view of the world. Our use of the Internet has shaped our generation into something quite different than any before. The Internet has made us lazier, more prone to distraction and more self-absorbed.
It should be remembered that the Internet has affected more than our generation, but ours is the one that has latched onto and revolutionized it. Younger generations will be the same, but they may even have their own technological advancement that trumps ours.
To analyze the importance of the Internet to society, we first have to look at the past. Marshall McLuhan was an English professor at the University of Toronto who came up with the theory of media ecology.
Media ecology is the idea that all of human history is divided into four ages, or epochs, that are determined by what is the dominant medium is the time. The dominant media then affects how we view the world. He coined the term, “the medium is the message” to sum this idea up.
The four ages are the tribal age, the literate age, the print age and the electronic age. The according dominant mediums of the ages were acoustic music, written word for the few, print word for the masses and finally radio and television.
McLuhan died before the debut of the Internet, so we can only guess what he would have thought of it. Some who have studied his work would say the internet would create a new age and others would lump it into the electronic age.

I personally think that while the internet isn’t the dawn of a new age, it is a stepping stone between two. We are, at the very least, exiting the electronic age and entering the digital age.
So what does that mean? To me, it shows a dangerous future. McLuhan himself said that the electronic age is a part of society’s push to go back to the tribal age, saying that we have become a global village. This is because of the instant communication available to us allows us to communicate across the globe before you could even hand write it.
What it really has done is allowed us total personalization to a completely unnecessary degree. It has increased our overall inflated idea of individuality to make us narcissistic. This is evident by looking at most of our peers’ Facebook pages and at every single old abandoned MySpace page.
The very nature of the internet tends to make us flighty and unfocused. It isn’t very easy to concentrate on writing or researching when your favorite tower defense game or any number of random YouTube clips is just a click away. And that ease also leads to procrastination, a disease that plagues us college students all of the time.
If we keep going on this road, we will only become more and more absorbed into the digital world. We already text things to people who are with us in the room, how long will it be before we text message someone instead of physically talking to them all of the time? Our drive for closeness to others only leads us to go through the easiest possible route, which is a path of depersonalization.
So perhaps the next time you’re checking your Facebook, maybe you’ll think to put your face in a book instead.

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During Spring Break, while most of us were getting some much needed rest and relaxation on a beach, or in some large metropolis, the Emporia State Debate Team was hard at work, preparing for the National Debate Tournament held in Berkeley, Calif. last week.

Four of the debaters from the ESU team competed in the 78-team tournament, an impressive feat by itself. The team of Chris Loghry and Kurt Fifelski received an invitation by qualifying at the District Three tournament held in Dallas, Texas, and the team of Ryan Wash and La Toya Williams-Green received an at large bid.

Though supporting all of ESU’s extracurricular activities is important, the reason why I make such a big deal about the debate team is this– in collegiate debate, there is no such thing as Division One or Division Two, every school is included regardless of size, which means that debaters at Emporia State compete against teams from large and prestigious colleges such as Harvard, the University of Texas and pretty much any other big school you can think of.

The fact that the ESU Debate Team not only competes with teams like these, but wins against such teams on a consistent basis is simply incredible.

It seems like it would go without saying that any team competing on that level deserves recognition. It is my impression that this is not the case. The only publicity or credit I have seen for the team comes from press releases, which come few and far between.

These guys and gals work hard all year long, and fly relatively under the radar when it comes to campus-wide acknowledgment.

I realize debate is not as exciting to non-debaters as some of the spectator sports and entertainment activities on campus, but it seems to me that in order to live the most complete student life possible, it is crucial that one have a good grasp on what the University is known for and what it is good at.

Ladies and Gentlemen… Emporia State is good at debate, and has been for several years. They even won the National Championship in 1993.

My fellow opinion staffers and I are major supporters of getting involved, and I see a brilliant opportunity to get involved and show support for a highly successful facet of our student body. The debate team works hard all year to compete nationally, and they deserve respect and support from the university, just as any other extracurricular activity who shows success would.

Though this debate season is over, I encourage everyone to go to The Bulletin’s Web site and show your support. Leave a comment on the electronic version of this story to encourage the teams of Fifelski/Loghry and Wash/Williams-Green and the entire debate team in their endeavors.

If there is one thing I am sure of, it is that the most distinct advantage we have here at ESU is the incredible opportunity to create a sense of community not available at larger colleges. This sense of community will come from encouraging individuals like those on the debate team to continue to succeed in their undertakings. Everyone could use a little encouragement, even if it is from strangers, and a little bit of pride in ourselves and peers never hurt anyone.

I’m not going to debate you on it, but I truly believe the ESU debate team deserves the respect and support of the entire ESU community. If someone can convince me otherwise, they should probably be on the team.

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Harrison George

Sitting in class the other day, I came to a surprising realization. Over the last year, unbeknownst to me, I had somehow become “that guy” in class. You know who I mean. The guy that sits up front every class period, always the first to raise their hand to offer a $10 answer to a $2 question. In middle school, we called this guy a suck-up or the teacher’s pet.  I came to this conclusion after it dawned on me that I was the only student in the class who had spoken all day.

I hadn’t always been this way. Up until this year, my senior year, I was merely an interested student who spoke up only when the situation really called for it. After a question was asked I’d wait a few minutes and if no one else wanted to answer it I would.

As a sociology major, it only seems right that I would spend time analyzing how students regard each other within class. Like most of my fellow students, I didn’t care much for the teacher’s pet, which can be found in just about every classroom.

I couldn’t understand how they could be so socially blind to the fact that they stood out like sore thumbs every time they tried to answer questions or engage the teacher in conversations. I figured it was just another example of people who liked to hear themselves talk.

But this year has changed my perspective on things, and I feel I understand more of the motivation behind the verbose student. My classes have started to affect me on a level that goes beyond the classroom. The material I’m learning about has crept into my thoughts while off campus. I can easily say I am a changed person because of the classes I have had this year and are taking right now.            After years of math, science, and general education classes that went in one ear and out the other, I am thrilled to see that my education is actually starting to sink in.

It’s this mindset that inspires me to speak up in class. I have reached an amazing intersection of interest and actual comprehension of a subject, and that fact gets me so excited I feel the need to become actively involved in my education.

Even after four years of college, that feeling of knowing the answer to a teacher’s question is exciting enough to motivate me to raise my hand, regardless of how it makes me look to the rest of the class.

From my new perspective I have also reexamined what kind of student I used to be. As a more passionate student, I look back on how I was and think about all the chances I missed to widen my understanding of what was being taught.

I have become a believer that education can’t be a spectator sport- students have to take a proactive stance on making sure they not only understand what is being taught but can relate it to their own lives, aka the real world.

I look back on my quieter self and think I was robbing myself of a full education simply because I didn’t want to come off as a dork. Even though we are college that doesn’t mean we’ve fully escaped the world of cliques and social status that was so evident in high school; it’s just more subtle here.

We all take note of how others perceive us, especially in the classroom. There were definitely times I would have spoken up but didn’t for worry about how it would shape people’s view of me.

Now, with a mere two months left before graduation, I’ve become a full blown, unabashed sociology nerd. I am no longer going to apologize for loving my classes and for wanting to interact with my teachers. I am willing to take on the labels that come with that attitude. In the end it’s worth it to feel I am getting my full college education experience.

We all know that it’s cool to sit in the back and pretend you don’t really care about what the teacher is saying. It’s even cooler if you can do that and ace all the tests. But at some point you should stop and think about what is best for you, not your reputation.

In 20 years, are you going to remember how cool you looked in class playing games on your phone or are you going to remember what you learned when you spoke up and asked a question?

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Harrison George

Last Monday, I was feeling exhausted. I had gone through a full day of class, two club meetings, and still had an event for The Bulletin to prepare for. I had a free hour in my schedule and decided to go listen to the speaker at the Granada Theater.

Her name was Dr. Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons. She was a Civil Rights activist who worked with Dr. King during the 1960’s. She spoke about her time as a volunteer in the American South, helping minorities register to vote and working with local churches to spread the word of the Civil Rights Movement.

As I listened to her speak I was consumed by an overwhelming feeling. Suddenly all the feelings of exhaustion, and pride, created from the work I had done that day drained out of me and I was left only with one big question; “What am I doing to change the world?”

To say I found Dr. Simmons inspiring would be an understatement. Her personal story of sacrifice and dedication to a cause she felt so much passion for made my own feelings of commitment pale by comparison. She spoke about the things she willingly risked to become involved in the Civil Rights movement; expulsion from school, disownment from her family, threats to her very life.

Up until that night I felt I was doing a lot in the name of my passions. I felt satisfied with what I had done and was doing, and I felt like I was doing “enough” to support them.

            But after hearing Dr. Simmons speak, I realize there is no such thing as “enough” when it comes to an issue you are truly passionate about. Until that problem is solved, or justice has been delivered, you can never do “enough”.

I’ve always been inspired by the actions taken by the counterculture generation of the 60’s. Looking back at all the work that generation did for great causes such as Civil Rights, Women’s Liberation, the Viet Nam protest, I can’t help but wonder why our generation has not followed in their footsteps.

What will be our great cause? What will cause us to rally by the thousands to have our voice be heard?  What are we waiting for?

It can’t be because there are no more issues to fight. In some ways, we have just as much work to do as any generation that came before us. The problems might not be as clear-cut as legal racial discrimination, but they exist.

I’m reminded of a silly bumper sticker I once saw on the back of a truck. It said “If you aren’t angry you aren’t paying attention.” Where is the passion of our generation? Where is our unstoppable desire to see change?

All of us have watched the harrowing footage of protestors being attacked by police dogs, and being sprayed by fire hoses. I have tried to think of a situation where our generation would put themselves at that much risk for a cause, and I seem to draw a blank.

We’ve let society define us as a generation of apathy; a generation of slackers interested only in instant gratification and job security. Society tends to place its own worse habits on that of the latest generation. We are letting them tell us who we are, and more importantly, how we will be remembered by generations to come.

I know for a fact that I could be doing more. With every day that passes my feelings about our wars in the Middle East grow stronger and more concrete. My dedication to protecting the environment continues to be central to who I am as a person.

So what do I do about it? Why aren’t I protesting, taking my views to the people, making my voice heard?

Because it’s easy to get slowed down in the daily distractions of modern life; TV, Facebook, and the like. Because it’s easier to say you’re an advocate for something then to go out and prove it.

In the 1960’s, the people didn’t wait around for their government to create change. They didn’t put all their hopes on the shoulders of one charismatic leader. That generation stood up, made a plan, and followed through.

Are we going to do the same, or are we going to stay seated?

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Harrison George

I never thought that my last semester in college could be so difficult. It’s not the workload that is hurting me, or the juggling of class, work and my club activities. Those things are all challenging in their own way, but what is really throwing me for a loop is the content of my classes.

As a senior sociology major I am forced to examine every single one of my views on how the world operates on a daily basis. My classes are all based on viewing everyday subject matter from a new perspective.

For example, I am in Sociology of Death and Dying. The class focuses on how society views the process of growing older and dying, and how we react to the natural occurrence of life and death. This class forces me to analyze my own private opinions on death and how it affects me.

Like most normal people I try to avoid thinking about death, either my own or that of my family, whenever possible. This class pushes it to the fore-font of my attention.

I’m also in class entitled Social Deviance. This class has taught me an incredible lesson. From this class I have gathered there is no real universal “right or “wrong” in life; all values are relative based on their specific society or culture.

So anything I might consider to be wrong, weird, or in any way deviant is merely a product of my culture and time period.

Confusing? Try taking 15 hours of this a week – it’ll make your head swim.

The point is that in the last two months alone I have felt my values and world views, things I hold very dear to my heart, begin to mold and shift, and I can see that my outlook on life is currently undergoing a monumental transformation.

But as scary as it is to have your proverbial rug pulled out from under you, I have to remind myself that is exactly why I came to college in the first place. I am here to have my values and opinions tested, and I am prepared to change them if they can’t be defended.

College should be that time in our lives where we are the most open-minded to new ideas. We are away from our parents, our biggest social influencers growing up. And we are still a few years away from joining the “real” world, where we are expected to have our opinions in line. Now is the time we should be testing and experimenting, and be willing to make changes if that’s what the situation calls for.

I welcome you all to willfully step outside your comfort zones while in college and try embracing ideas radical to your own. If you try this, there are only two feasible outcomes – you view both sides of an issue, decide you still agree with your initial opinion, and walk away that much more secure in your beliefs, or you decide there is more logic found in the alternate viewpoint, and you walk away with a more open mind.

Either way, putting your views and opinions to the test will only make you more comfortable in the end with the way you feel, and will help you the next time you feel the need to explain yourself to an ideological opponent who questions you.

I feel as though my values are under a constant attack on a daily basis. But once I get over the feelings of involuntary defensiveness that comes with having strong opinions, and agree to see the issue from the widest perspective possible, I am able to appreciate what college can really do for the mind.

I hope that all students are able to appreciate the college experience in that way.

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Harrison George

My senior year will soon be drawing to a close, and I can’t help but think about what kind of impact I have made here at ESU.

It’s also made me stop and see the school on a larger scale, seeing not only how ESU impacts me but all the students, staff and faculty here. I feel grateful for all that my college experience has given me.

This school has given me so many great things – a great education, a wonderful group of friends, a fantastic fraternity, just to name a few.

The last four years have been instrumental in helping shape me as a person. So it’s natural that I would want to give back to a campus that has given so much to me.

I feel proud of the work I have already done on campus. Working with the Environmental Club, Zoiks! the improv comedy team, and my fraternity, AKL, I’ve been able to get involved on campus and feel like I’m helping make things better for the campus as a whole.

I have a deep pride for my school, and the Emporia community, and I am glad to give back whenever I can.

But I see a lot of students who don’t feel the same. It seems that many students are content to simply go to class and go home. They are also the students most willing to speak poorly of ESU or Emporia as a town.

Now I should point out there are those who would be more actively involved throughout campus but cannot for various reasons. I have been lucky enough to avoid ever working a full time job while in college and because of this I’ve had the time to commit towards campus activities. (Though I’ll be paying back the student loans for a while)

This school does so much for the students, but what do the students do for the school? What are we doing to ensure that the future generations of college students are getting the same, if not better, college experience?

It’s easy, especially at a school like ESU, to adopt the mindset of just wanting to get through college. ESU might not be the most exciting school out there, or the most prestigious, so many people just treat it like a stepping stone towards their next life goal.

But this mindset undervalues all the wonderful things that ESU and Emporia do have to offer. It’s simple logic that the more you put into something the more you will get out. Your college experience is what you make it. No one but you can have the final say on how you view your time here- not your fellow classmates, not your teachers, and not the administration. If you want to have a good time in college, the responsibility lies on you.

My friends at KU and K-State ask me how I’m able to have so much fun at ESU. I tell them it’s because I decide I’m going to have fun, and then go out and find it. I put in the work and I get to reap the results, which are an awesomely good time with great people.

I hope that everyone will look back on their college years with as much enjoyment as I will. I cannot wait to come back for ESU alumni events, to see the old alma mater once again. I hope that I will still see students actively involved in their campus and community events.

I will feel proud to know I was someone who helped maintain, and maybe even improve, the workings of the campus, so that others after me could enjoy it here as much as I did.

Like the old saying goes, “we plant trees under whose shade we will never sit.” We all have the opportunity to plant trees here at ESU, for the future generations of students to enjoy and to use.

We should take advantage of those opportunities, not just because of what they can do for the future, but for what the experiences can do for us now.

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