Thursday, November 19, 2009

Let's not blow this out of proportion

On a cold October morning, a handful of juniors made a fateful decision as they groped through their closet for a comfortable sweatshirt. They arrived at school with lettering stamped across their chests, spelling out the all-too familiar names: YALE, BROWN, STANFORD–words they would soon wholly regret advertising.

The senior class, as stressed out as James Franco is attractive, stormed the offices of the authorities, torches and pitchforks in hand, and insisted that this wrong be righted. With early application due dates rearing their collegiate heads, they argued, the apparel of the junior class was insensitive, pretentious, and, in a word, inexcusable.

The two sides have now reached some kind of a stalemate. And now that the cacophony has subsided, may I suggest that our reaction was a bit overblown?

Let me start by pointing out some painful truths. First, this firestorm erupted on a free dress day, a day when people are allowed to wear whatever they want (yes, even if it makes you nervous about your future). If a junior is wearing a college sweatshirt on a uniform day, I am all in favor of subjecting them to the tidal wave of demerits they deserve. This, however, was not the case.

Second, I hope none of us think ourselves so important that a person would plan their entire outfit around offending us. But I am not going to waste this small space trying to convince my classmates that the juniors did nothing wrong- -if there’s one thing I admire about the class of 2010, it’s their loyalty to their convictions.

What really bothers me about this whole fiasco is the bigger picture–how we allowed ourselves to (in the words of President Obama) get all wee-weed up about this.

Believe me, it is a stressful time. I will not deny that. But the amount of gravity we are placing upon a mere four years of our lives is absolutely ridiculous. Do we all really want to believe that the greatest years of our lives end at 22? As for the argument that our futures are dictated by our bachelor’s degree, that I also find depressingly limiting, and untrue. When I hear a fellow schoolmate proudly claiming that movies like Rent and Into the Wild “changed my life,” I would hope that they can recognize their own hypocrisy in obsessing over academic establishments.

Let’s say, however, you are not one to swoon over movies that romanticize the “downwith-the-people” lifestyle. Let’s say you are simply one of those who argued that juniors fail to understand “what we are going through.” I understand that the college process is a mixture of emotions, but I urge you to make sure that the feeling that rises to the top is one of gratitude. “What we are going through” deals with a small fly in the overall caviar of our exceedingly privileged lives. I hate to get all “people are starving in Africa,” on you, but as we learned from Dr. Mathabane, people are not only starving in Africa, but getting their feet eaten off by rats in Africa. If I recall, every member of the student body stood up in applause for his advice to be thankful for what we have.

Let’s not make fools of ourselves with contradictory behavior. Making mountains out of outerwear will not get you into college.

1 comment:

  1. "On a cold October morning,"

    Yo, Faith, Imma let you finish, but I have to say that it's WAY colder here in the east. Sorry, I'm a bit cold-obsessed at the moment 'cause it's about 35 degrees outside and the heater in my dorm is broken. Looking forward to college?

    But seriously. The whole college-sweatshirt thing has struck me both as a high school student and a college student. At Buckley it was actually our Class of 2009 "Senior Privelege" that we could, as part of our uniform dress, wear any college sweatshirt we wanted.

    This brought about some interesting behavior. Personally I declined to buy any college sweatshirts while touring because I figured, once I knew what college I would be attending, it would be weird having a whole bunch of sweatshirts from other colleges. But that didn't stop most people, and somewhat to my surprise even after we all had our results in people would still wear sweatshirts from other colleges. And of course there were those that tried to find sweatshirts from the most unknown or disreputable colleges they could think of for humor's sake.

    And furthermore to my surprise, even now that I'm in college I still see plenty of sweatshirts from other colleges. Granted I don't think Bard is topping any lists for School Spirit, but then again neither are most Ivies, who probably sell more merchandise to tourists than they do to prospective students (my mother still has the Harvard Mom mug I bought her in 5th grade).

    I think, if we're honest, it really is the Juniors who derive the most benefit out of college sweatshirts. Many of them are going on or have gone on college tours, and they're all at the point where possibilities are endless and they have not yet been saddled with the responsibility of actually having to apply to college. Of course it's stressfull, but don't fret, they'll have their turn. Let them have their fun in the mean time.

    Cheers from the "other side",

    Ben Wszalek

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