The Brown & White

As a fifth-year student, I've heard more about the Lehigh bubble and student apathy than I care to think about.

There are always at least a few columns written about this every year, and because of the election, apathy has become even more of a buzzword than usual.

There is a certain amount of validity to these charges, as our student body as a whole is just not that interested in issues that extend beyond the Lehigh community. Break up too many parties on The Hill, and you've got an angry mob on your hands. Open a casino that will drastically alter the atmosphere of the South Side, ahh … whatever.

The thing is, we're not the only ones who act this way.

Take a look back through history, and you will find that Americans have a long tendency toward social protest. Our predecessors demonstrated against the Vietnam War and fought for civil rights. They organized labor strikes to improve working conditions, achieved women's suffrage and risked their lives to end slavery.

But this protest gene seems to be largely absent from our generation's collective DNA. Some might argue today's youth have not carried on this tradition because we are not faced with issues of the same gravity as our forefathers.

I would argue the opposite; the grievances are there, and there are more than a few of them.

We remain mired in an unpopular war with no end in sight, and as a largely indifferent administration looked on, New Orleans was inundated. We've seen a dubious presidential election with serious questions as to who really won, and the average family can barely pay its bills at the end of the month.

And yet, aside from the odd rally here or there, our generation has not shown the solidarity on any kind of a consistent basis to say, "This is unacceptable, we deserve better," the way previous generations have.

Our niche in society, to put it simply, has become a weird place to occupy. We're simultaneously kept immature while losing the idealistic, optimistic spirit of our youth.

College has become a necessity. But many schools cost around $200,000 over four years, which means most students graduate with a financial burden that will take years to pay. And that's just for an undergraduate degree.

It becomes a lot harder to spend time and effort helping the less fortunate or trying to change the unfair ways of the world when you have tremendous debt limiting your ability to live life as you please.

Suddenly, there are doors in our lives that have closed, and the realization that no, we cannot be whatever we want to be when we grow up.

It's not only the bloated cost of college tuitions that causes students to lose the wide-eyed optimism and hope that comes with being young. The primary focus of our higher educational system has changed.

Its goal is no longer to foster creative thinking about the world but rather to train students for their careers. Competition and pressure have replaced curiosity and expansion of the mind. Grades, internships, jobs with the Big Four or acceptance into the best law and medical schools is the be-all-end-all of our world.

We are immature. We do what we do on the weekends. The promiscuity, the drinking, all become so much more important because the real world and the friends who have graduated continually provide reminders that in a few short years, it will all come to an end. And the replacement is not always so attractive.

There's nothing necessarily wrong with a certain amount of immaturity. I've had a lot of fun during my time at Lehigh, and there is not a whole lot I would change.

But all of this comes with a sacrifice in that we lose sight of the world around us. Getting arrested at a sit-in would greatly hinder the job search. While you could volunteer for the campaign on Friday, it would be easier to just get wasted. After all, there are only so many days before the dreaded real world.

For four short years, our world consists of what's right in front of our faces, in the here and now. And then, it's off to the rat race.