In the stress of having two major assignments due in a week, a daunting midterm and extracurricular commitments, college students are likely to fall into an apathetic slump. It's easy to unwind from classes by sitting in our rooms and binge watching Netflix until the clock dictates that we have to start that five page paper we've been putting off. While rest and relaxation are necessary and healthy, sometimes we should take a step back and think about how we could be utilizing our time better – not for our own benefit, but for the benefit of others.
"I can't help with the fundraiser, because I still have to study for my chemistry test/write a paper/prepare a presentation. But good luck with your fundraiser!" I know quite well that these things are time-consuming and important, but their importance does not outweigh our obligation to be involved in causes that extend beyond our university.
As Emory students, we have access to a nigh unparalleled higher education experience. But there is still a culture of indifference to those issues that are not right in front of us, even though these problems are all too real.
This issue is greater than simply forgetting how fortunate we are to be at this institution. When we neglect the problems of the world, we're wasting the reason why we're at Emory in the first place: to cultivate the knowledge and skills to improve the world beyond campus.
Going to college does not mean taking a four-year break from improving the world. Professors who have spent their lives studying patterns in political structures don't teach us about governments neglecting the interests of their people just so we can spit the information back onto an exam. What we learn from renowned chemistry researchers isn't supposed to supersede our awareness of global health issues.
Yet, we have become so wrapped up in our own lives that we think we can't spare the 30 minutes we would have spent procrastinating on Facebook to participate in an event that raises money to build a school in Uganda.Are we all really too busy meticulously proofreading our papers that we don't have one Saturday morning to participate in a 5k that would help distribute HIV/AIDS treatment?
The question, then, is why should people get involved?
Because it matters.
How much more unwilling would you be to go to your 8:00AM if you had to walk 10 miles instead of 10 minutes to get there? How many more annual physicals would you skip if you knew you couldn't afford not only the healthcare, but also the bus fare to get there?
If all of us knew that students in rural Uganda without an education are three times more likely to be HIV-positive than those with a secondary school education, or that it would only take $10 to provide five people with transportation to an HIV/AIDS clinic in Rwanda, maybe we would be more likely to help.
The fact that many of us don't take the time to think about the greater purpose behind being a student means that we need to re-contextualize our education and reshape our undergraduate experience.
It's alarming that putting our smaller problems in perspective somehow becomes a dismissed cliché. A "think about all the starving people in Africa" comment when we complain about the food at the DUC gets an eye-roll. So we stop thinking about it. And when we stop thinking, we stop caring.
I propose that we start caring again. This isn't a call to join every group that even remotely helps a developing nation or that you should spend 5 hours each day volunteering for a different non-profit.
But it is a call to recognize that the point of our undergraduate education is not to get so caught up in academics that we forget to support one another as we strive to make real changes.
We stress out so much over these small road bumps we hit on "our way to becoming a real person." But we have to stop ignoring the actual work of being a person in the world.
So be a person. Be a person who cares about issues that are next door and issues that are 7,000 miles away. And then be a person who takes action and contributes to the change.
- By Isabelle Saldana
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