I have stirred up a bit of drama in the past few weeks, and I think I may have surprised a good number of people with my negative attitude. I’ve been incredibly active, incredibly vocal, and downright notorious for being a student leader in my time as a student here at Stevens, so perhaps it doesn’t make sense that my experience has been anything but good? Regardless, allow me to explain my current negativity.
Over the years, I have observed and experienced firsthand the ridiculousness of some of the darker sides of Stevens. From the “bureaucratic hell” that my friend from the letter to the editor two weeks ago mentioned, to the lack of management from the anti-R.A.G.E. piece mentioned last week, I know what they’re talking about. Student Life often doesn’t help as much as it can, despite ample conversations and deep discussions regarding clubs—sometimes it can’t because it is too busy. I think in the case of the letter to the editor from two weeks ago, your club is probably getting tossed to the wayside by pushier people, and it will help if you be more aggressive with appointments and help guide your case along.
As for the anti-R.A.G.E. letter, I know people may give you flack for that, but really, I can only agree: the event was poorly managed, complete with lack of advertising and a website malfunction. (By the way, I didn’t even know Techfest was happening until I saw it was rescheduled on the front page of The Stute. Um, hello? You need to advertise things a lot better!)
But I digress; this is not what I wanted to talk about. I want to address a point in the “Re: last week’s letter” that was addressed to me. You accused me of just complaining, no action. You’re right, that is exactly what I am doing. Here is why: I am done. In the mere one year that I have left in this school, I have no time to make the voluminous amount of changes to address the problems that I see.
I see issues with the red tape in Student Life. I see issues with lack of technology in the Registrar. I see a slow turnover time on some IT issues. I see poor student representation in administrative decision making. I see the SGA using money in ways with which I don’t agree. The list really goes on for much longer than can fit in this column.
The point is, I don’t have time, nor do I want to expend the emotional energy in dealing with these problems—I have been dealing with them long enough.
So I have three major options. I can do something about it, as you suggest, which will take months and months with no guarantee of progress. I could just do nothing, ignore it all, take my degree and run the hell away. Or, I can whine and complain right here, and hope that someone like you “gets it.”
Let’s go through each option to see why I chose the latter. Fun fact: it took me eight months to schedule an alumni luncheon with The Stute. In the end, it was a travesty because, despite frequent meetings and emails, people just didn’t have the motivation to move forward correctly. That was a basic event. Do you honestly think something like the lack of representation of the student body in regards to campus improvements is something that will take less than eight months? I won’t even be here that long. Because of my time constraints, I cannot spend time to fix this in this manner.
And, despite all of my anger and frustration to the problems in this school, for some damn reason, I still care. I don’t want someone like me to exist. I am furious with a lot of these things on this campus, and I get even more frustrated when I realize that if I had more time I could have done something. If I knew a guy like me when I was a freshman, I would have been inspired to actually make stuff happen. When I was younger, I had no idea about the problems of this school. This leads me to my final conclusion.
I have to complain. The more trouble I stir up, the more people I piss off, the more fingers I point, and the more I yell, the more my anger propagates. If I can instill within the underclassmen the knowledge I have acquired, matched with the fury I contain inside, then maybe, just maybe, in a few years we’ll have one of the best colleges around. If anyone can pick up where I left off, they can start harassing the people that need harassing for these changes to happen.
But, I get it. I’ll take a break for now. You guys are probably sick of hearing me complain anyways.
