As a student who was home schooled since preschool, I experienced a bit of a culture shock when I began dual enrolling at a community college at age 16. I was suddenly surrounded by people from a huge variety of backgrounds, lifestyles, beliefs and work ethics, many of which had a penchant for using curse words in place of adjectives. But what surprised me the most was the number of people who simply did not care.
Coming to class, completing assignments on time and getting good grades were all optional. After two years there, I got used to the culture that had been so new to me. Because of my experience in community college, I had a better idea of what to expect in entering The University of Alabama this fall.
What I’ve seen so far hasn’t surprised me that much: students scraping by on five hours of sleep, chowing down on junk food, getting plastered on weekends, watching TV for hours on end, spending a big chunk on shopping and eating out, being content with C’s on tests, mindlessly consuming entertainment saturated with depravity, pulling all-nighters to throw together the paper that’s due the next morning, sleeping with the person they met in a drunken haze at the last frat party, complaining about their school workload without really trying to tackle it and the list goes on. All of this seems to be done in the name of embracing college independence, taking advantage of new opportunities and having fun. But only one common thread really runs through it all: “OK” is good enough and it’s fine to be stuck at “average.”
It’s really a shame that I, and a lot of other people, have come to expect low standards from our age group. We students all probably know deep down that college is supposed to prepare us academically, socially, vocationally, spiritually, physically, mentally and emotionally to be responsible adults in the real world. Yet the habits that many of us are developing don’t lead in that direction. They are more the habits of barely-made-it-through graduates who move back home after college and play video games all day than the habits of successful, mature, independent adults.
I don’t mean to suggest that college students as a whole are lazy, irresponsible bums. On the contrary, a lot of students are truly driven, talented, and hardworking people. But with so many new ideas, distractions and opportunities all around us, it is so easy for us to fail to reach our fullest potential. It’s easy to settle for less without even thinking that there is so much more we could be reaching for.
It’s easy to take the first good sounding thing to come along without pausing to consider that there might be something better. And every time we take the easy way out, we cheat ourselves.
I believe that we should stop viewing each day as simply another 24 hours to get through. Rather, we should make each day a step towards what we want to be. We should stop going with the flow of mediocrity and instead challenge each other to go beyond it. I recently started www.allungo.blogspot.com for the purpose of mutual inspiration and encouragement, so that those of us who believe that there’s more can have a place to discuss and share ideas. I don’t think there are as few of us as some might think. We need to start by not being willing to settle anymore. It’s time that we started reaching for our fullest potential.
Ashley Smith is a freshman majoring in dance and apparel design.
