Editor in chief: Laura Cadiz
Editorial Editors: Bret Jacobson, Laura Lucas
Newsroom: (541)346-5511
Room 300, Erb Memorial Union
P.O. Box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403
E-mail: ode@oregon.uoregon.edu
Thursday
March 9,2000
Volume 101, Issue 114
Emerald
.1
How many times have we thought, “If
only I didn’t have classes to worry
about, how happy my life would be?”
But the mistake many students make is
thinking that these classes are the only thing
they need to be doing in their college lifetime.
So much time, energy and concentration are
spent on grades and classes that students don’t
bother participating in any other activities,
such as internships and other outside encoun
ters. Sadly enough, this narrow focus on
scholastic pressures will
one day cause even
greater stress because out
side experiences are the
key to success in the post
college life.
“I wish I had gotten
much more involved in
outside activities,” said
Allison Pemerl, a senior
humanities major. “I have
no experience, and I have
no idea what I want to do.
I don’t even know what I
don’t want to do. I’m go
ing into the field empty-handed, and this
scares me.”
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the stress
of the real world.
Imagine sitting in a small office face to face
with an employer who is interviewing you for
your dream job. I know, we hate to think about
that day, but alas it. will come. And he or she
will ask you why you should be hired. What
kind of experience have you had? You think,
experience? Isn’t my degree enough? Your an
swer revolves around “Well I liked all my
classes and I got A’s.” Unfortunately that just
doesn’t cut it.
“It’s the ability to be able to talk about expe
riences that’s most important,” Career Center
Director Larry Smith said. “Interns especially
find meaning from their experiences and have
a lot to talk about.”
Sooner or later our time will run out, and we
will be pushed into a world where grades will
no longer be the prime stress factor. The time
will come when you will finally ask yourself
how you’re going to apply all this knowledge
you worked so hard to gain. Students are on
such a mission to graduate that once they do,
they finally stop and think “Now what?” Don’t
let yourself fall into the trap of giving in to the
Beata
Mostafavi
academic demands so much that you forget
about what else is out there and that there are
other ways to accomplish your goals in life.
According to Smith, it can be scary for stu
dents who don’t know what they want to do,
but he said there are alternatives.
“A good way to deal with that is by testing...
not jumping in for total immersion but testing
different possibilities,” he said. “Internships
especially are a great way to do this. Seniors
who have only allocated all their time to class
es reach the point when they think ‘whoops,’
that probably wasn’t the best way to do col
lege.” 1
Aside from the fact that a substantial re
sume is appealing to competitive employers,
the experiences gained from outside activities
also help students make personal decisions
about their future. You may love your classes,
but maybe when you’re actually working in the
field, you’ll discover that this is not the route
for you. If you’re not getting the feel for what
you want to do, then you won’t really know
what it’s like, and by the time you do, it just
may be too late. Then try taking your blood
pressure.
“Outside experiences such as internships
expose you to all kinds of people and situa
tions,” said Smith. “They will help you answer
questions you may have about your future
plans. For example, what are the career paths
within different organizations? How are deci
sions made within these organizations? What
are the characteristics of people within a cer
tain organization? What’s the style and manner
of an advertising agency as compared to that of
a bank?”
These four years can be a great stepping
stone to get to where you want to be someday.
Most students convince themselves that they
don’t have time for anything but classes, but if
that’s all you do, you’ve wasted a lot of time in
the long run. Apply for internships, work for
groups that relate to your major or join a cam
pus organization. Just do something. Gleening
knowledge from experiences will pay off when
that man in the black suit asks you why you are
the qualified candidate for the job.
Learn Pemerl’s lesson, and get the experi
ences as early as possible.
<
i
Beata Mostafavi is a columnist for the Oregon Daily Emer
ald. Her views do not necessarily represent those of the
Emerald. She can be reached via e-mail at
bmostafa@gladstone.uoregon.edu.
Bryan Dixon Emerald
Letters to the editor
Looking for accountability
As the days of the elections and outcomes for the ballot
measures have come and gone, we are now left to wonder
how the democratic process at the University will play out.
The ballot for Workers Rights Consortium, a monitoring
body that enforces cooperate codes of conduct, passed with
3/4 majority. It’s awesome to see that students are taking a
stand to end sweatshop labor. If the University adopts the
WRC, we will be working in solidarity with students at oth
er universities, human rights groups and labor groups to
empower workers internationally. We voted yes for the
WRC, but it is not us who makes the decision, it is Univer
sity President Frohnmayer. We need to be sure that he is ac
countable to the students, listen to our voices and join the
Workers Rights Consortium.
Jarnuna Golden
undeclared
Company or democracy?
With the student elections now ending, we are once
again beginning the game of trying to decipher the role and
importance of the student votes and wondering whether
they will be taken seriously. The administration now and
in the past has said that the students are uninformed and
uneducated to the issues and therefore their voices should
not be taken into account. While this is the norm these days
in the university system, I think it says something quite sig
nificant about the ways in which these institutions are run.
If a university student body functions under a democrat
ic structure and if a ballot measure passed by that body re
ceives 3/4 of the votes and deals with a decision that only
the administration at this time can make, then it would ap
pear that our self governing and democratic university is
just a superficial veil held over the student body. That
while we may have minute control over the ASUO, the
University itself is still run by a few people who aren’t stu
dents, which has the appearance more of a company than
of a democracy.
I hope this trend of dismissing student voice as naive and
unimportant will not be renewed this year by the adminis
tration. If it is, however, hopefully it will be met with more
resistance and action by the student body.
Devin Dinihanian
fine arts