We Are The Next Generation; GET INVOLVED

Stefanie Wheeler, online editor

My freshman year I had to make a slightly conscious effort to follow current events in the news. I was brought up in a political environment so I was always naturally drawn to politics and news, but as a young college student sleeping past noon any day I had the chance to, reading or watching the news didn’t always make top priority in my day-to-day routine. I mean, I had five page papers to write last minute. I was too busy frantically typing my topic into Google to quote a sentence from that “5th source” that so many professors required.

Then my sophomore year came around, and with the Obama vs. McCain media frenzy, I found myself glued to the television. This was history in the making and I certainly didn’t want to miss a beat. But why weren’t my peers just as interested as I was? Maybe they didn’t care about politics? I would think EVERYONE should at least stay in tune with a presidential race…. I mean, the winner IS going to be running our country for at least the next four years. Everybody seemed to be jumping on either the Obama or McCain bandwagon, but very few people that I spoke to could even name one thing on their political agendas. Taking on a certain political affiliation became a trend, but with very little behind it.

Throughout my junior year I found myself making Google Alerts for everything that seemed important and I set my homepage to http://www.nytimes.com so that every time I opened a browser to go on Facebook, I’d be greeted with the latest headlines first.

Now I’m in my senior year and I’ve become my mother. The news is constantly on my television and on my computer, I e-mail my friends links to articles that I find interesting, and I call my parents pretty frequently to rant about something stupid the government is doing.

Often times, I get into heated debates with other students in class over politics, news, or pretty much anything anyone wants to disagree with me about. I find that a lot of these debates are essentially a waste of my time. Why don’t students know what’s going on in our world? We are the next generation to do something big. We have all of the doors opened for us and the opportunities are endless. It’s scary knowing that as college students and the next generation of politicians, educators, business men and women, doctors, philosophers, and lawyers, some of us didn’t even know who was running in the midterm election Nov 2nd or that Juan Williams was fired from NPR–or even what NPR is.

This may seem over-dramatic or over-generalized. I admit, not ALL college students are in complete and utter darkness about our nation and world, but to the ones who are: GET INVOLVED and care about what’s going on. Stay up to date, voice your opinions, and listen to others. Bounce thoughts and ideas around with your friends. This is the most influential times of our lives. Let’s make it worth something.