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Activities soften college’s hard edge
So another academic year has begun.
It’s only a few days old, but already you can see people scurrying about trying to get to classes every which way you turn.
It’s great to see the campus come back to life. Not too long ago, you would be excused if you thought SCSU was a ghost town of some sort.
Even when summer classes were going on, there were not too many people on campus. Now, take a gander around and you will see at least 10 people in every nook and cranny.
People talk about the “rat race” and the “real world.” I can tell you this, though. What you see around campus these days is the equivalent of the two overused phrases.
I know many people who seem to think that college/university life is easy. I think everybody has heard someone say something like “Enjoy your college life, because when you get out into the real world, you’re going to wish you were back in college.”
Having experienced the so-called “real world” myself before getting to college, I think that there is some truth to that saying. But at the same time, people seem to forget that college life is an exacting experience as well. It is, I believe, as tough a “rat race” as people say working life is.
Sure there are some people who seem to take things easy while at college. There are the party animals that every institution seems to have. And there are those who don’t party as much, but still manage to hold their own in the social scene.
But how many of us students out there hold down multiple jobs to make ends meet? I’m willing to bet that a huge majority of college students do. I did last year.
And who says working stiffs don’t party as hard anyway? You don’t just see college students down at the Red Carpet, or D.B.’s, or McRudy’s, or whatever bar in downtown St. Cloud, or any other city for that matter, do you? Of course not.
And if you think that only college students frequent those joints, then you’re one of three things — blind, ignorant or unwilling to acknowledge the truth.
But to get back to my point, apart from holding down one, two or more jobs, the average college student also has to worry about one more thing — class work. It is a stressful thing indeed.
Most students I know worry all the time about their class work. Then there’s the added stress of quizzes and exams. Not to mention the occassional paper thrown in by some professors and lecturers.
Thankfully, however, life at an institution like SCSU is not as stressful as attending some other colleges. Did you know that many students commit suicide at some well-known colleges and universities? The pressure to perform is so great that some students can find no other way out than to end their lives. Tragic, but true.
In this respect, organizations like Student Government, UPB and other student associations can provide a welcome respite from the stress of daily college life. The many activities that these entities organize, if put to good use, can liven up students’ lives and take away from the pressure.
Granted, these activities are not free, as we pay for them through our student activity fees, but if you take into account the number of activities, that fee seems a small thing. And most of these activities don’t just offer a chance for fun, but a chance for us to learn as well.
Take for example the various cultural nights put on every year. True, these are usually not free, but they are subsidized. But don’t think of it as money going down the drain, but money spent in order to learn something new. For a few dollars, you gain knowledge you could probably never learn in a classroom.
All things having been said, it’s good to be back in the swing of things at SCSU. This will be my last semester here, and I’m looking forward to diving head-first into my studies and work.
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