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EDITOR IN CHIEF
Ryan Frank
EDITORIAL EDITOR
KameronCole
Welcome to cameos:
Enjoy, but don’t stay
University life is fantastic, but
it’s mostly fun and games
Icame to college like anyone else,
scared to death about making friends
and a future. Those first few weeks,
buildings such as Johnson Hall and the
Museum of Art cast their shadows; profes
sors hammered out their expectations;
waves of students flooded campus, and I
felt like a dot. I thought I might find a place
in a world of such monolithic dimensions,
but I wasn’t hopeful.
Three years later, I see how wrong I was.
Little did I know that the University is
hardly a place to be scared of. Instead, it
should be exploited for its opportunities,
held in relatively low regard and taken for
Opinion
Asmey
Bach
wiiai 11 leauy id. d piay
ground.
The taxpayers of Oregon
have been nice enough to
provide us, the state’s
youth, with a campus on
which to learn how to be
grown-ups. Some people
call college a microcosm of
the real world. It is, but it
pales terribly in compari
son.
As students of the Univer
sity, we have a babv eovem
ment to play with, a baby constitution, a
baby court to interpret it, a baby police
force, a baby higher power (the adminis
tration) and even a baby paper.
At first glance, it sure looks like the
real world. And trust me, many people
have been fooled. But what we really
have is a fantasyland, like in “What
Dreams May Come,” where we can con
duct wild experiments and realize our
wildest dreams — and yet experience
little of any substance.
And while many of us are playing on
the slide of professionalism or climbing the
monkey bars of careerism, very few of us
understand what we have before us.
This is why the ASUO controls a $7.2
million budget and screams out constantly
to the student body, “Look at me! Look at
me!” This is why a bizarre group known as
the EMU crowd frets over every minute
and gossipy detail of student government
and student groups (witness the
uo.org.asuo newsgroup or the Oregon
Commentator). This is why people stay en
rolled at the University much longer than it
takes to get a degree.
They think the University actually mat
ters.
Of course, this doesn’t mean we ig
nore the opportunities given to us. We
can get valuable training — and en
joyment — in our “baby” environ
ments, in class and ultimately in a
degree, the final reward. But the
best experience comes from in
ternships, practicums and get
ting out of our little world.
Employers know this, evi
denced by the reams of col
lege grads and Ph.D.s
working cash registers
across the country.
In the end, it all
comes down to per
spective. I like col
lege myself. After
that initial fright
my first year, I
settled
down
and
realized
that at no other
time in life can you be
surrounded by thousands of
people your
age, all with the same
purposes in mind, eager to meet
each other and with youth on your side.
So I enjoy it while it lasts. But I don’t
treat it like it’s an important reality. It’s
fleeting, a stepping stone and in the grand
scheme of things, not all that important.
Let’s all have fun here and do what we
' I
'Chris Hutchinson/Emerald
need to prepare for the real world, but let’s
stop taking this place, and ourselves, so se
riously. Even the best playground equip
ment wears out after a while, and besides,
the kids eventually need to grow up.
Ashley Bach is a columnist for the Emerald.
His views do not necessarily represent those of
the newspaper.
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