[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by Bullitt

I sense much resentment in your voice kitsune.. I guess you've forgotten your days as a 19 year old. Maybe try layin off us kids because unless i'm mistaken, we're young and you're old and that means we haven't been around long enough to share in your infinite wisdom.

Speak up, I'm 26 and my hearing isn't so good, anymore! Those days are so faint, but I'll try, very hard, to recall them...

I was exactly the same as the people I describe. I walked campus without any cares, all my bills were paid, and my biggest complaint is that I had to eat ramen three meals a day. My biggest struggle was forcing myself out of bed to an icy dorm room floor to go to an 8am class that I usually fell asleep in. Despite this luxury, it didn't stop me, or any of my other classmates, from debating both in and out of class about how the world should be, how people should live, etc. Every generation previous generation does it, the current one does, and the future ones will.

Originally Posted by Bullitt

Maybe if you know so much more then you should be so kind as to share it with the rest of the class. There's better things you could be doing than ripping on a select group 19 year old kids and applying your little stereotype on the rest of us.

Muha! Not this morning, there isn't! I'm even pushing aside work to gripe at you and you get to read it! Nyaah-ha!

Originally Posted by Bullitt

We're not all idiots, some of us are actually trying to make a difference in people's lives.. what have you done like that recently? Give to a Hurricane Katrina fund? Or did you go down there and help clean up like some of my peers have done.

Actually, I housed, fed, and took care of some friends for several weeks that lost most of their belongings after their apartment took damage in the historic area of NO. But, really, that has nothing to do with what I'm trying to tell Brianna, nor does it change what I'm saying about a large percentage of the full-time college population. And I'm not implying that anyone in college is an idiot. In fact, I'll even assume that they're pretty damn intelligent since they made it that far and that they're probably going to do quite well in life.

...but, for almost all of them, they have little or no responsibilities outside of classes. Most of them have no families to worry about, no financial problems other than scraping together some food money, don't have to worry about paying taxes, and really haven't experienced any hardships in life. And, if they do, mummy and daddy will always accept them back into their homes or be more than happy to bail them out. They are luxurious, fat years for most students, but that doesn't prevent a fairly large group of them from speaking out quite loudly about how they think the "real world" should work and that they think they are suffering.

I still attend classes, I still walk campus, I still sit in on talks and lectures, I still listen to student debates. I'm impressed with their concerns -- concerns I never had as a full-time student -- and I'm really pleased that a lot of them are interested in government and politics. A lot of their arguments are well stated and have firm foundations.

...but a lot of them, the people that often have the loudest voice, like to argue about how they *know* the world should be run when, really, they haven't even stepped outside, yet. I'm simply telling Brianna that most of these people will change once they actually have to support themselves and find their own way in the world instead of having nearly everything handed to them. It is a normal transition.

Not all college students do it, not all live in a dorm (or, today and where I live and go to school - $1200/month apartments off campus!) that they don't have to drop a dime for, and not all of them are so cocky, but walk any campus and I promise you'll hear them loud and clear. None of them will hesitate to tell anyone how to live their lives, how to solve their problems, how everything should be. Their entire world is restricted to what they know, which is an entire world of people that had the money to attend college and get an education. Most of them know absolutely nothing else.

My favorite, recent discussion took place in a classroom that had mostly undergrads in it that would eventually go on to graduate with a four year degree in psychology and would not advance to seek their doctorate or master's. When they were polled on how much they expected to make at their first job right out of college, the overwhelming response was they fully expected no less than six figures. When it was carefully, gently explained that this might be a somewhat unrealistic expectation of them and that they might want to set the bar a little lower, an argument broke out about how much the students felt they were worth and that all the years of education they endured should get them something more than "a mere $75,000/year!" Several expressed their outrage when they were told that graduate students were not even expected to earn that much and one very red-faced girl began to complain that college, perhaps after all, wasn't really worth her time and wasn't worth her suffering.

Poor baby.