My four years here have left me with a fiery idealism and burning restlessness to approach this canvas we call earth and beautifully paint a piece of it. I hope your education has done the same. I also hope that you take that vivacious excitement with you and grasp hold of it, even against the poisons of dullness and monotony.

There is so much stimulating, exhilarating, compelling work ahead of us all. But the terrifying taboo of post-college adulthood is that none of that work will always be stimulating, exhilarating or compelling. There will be days when we have to enter data into spreadsheets, or fill out reports, or pick up groceries or do any number of the banal tasks that are the price of admission to real world independence. It is at those moments, when maybe your eyes are strained from your computer screen or you get home from work hungry and wishing you still lived near a quasi-assisted-living facility, that I hope you rekindle your inspiration.

We know how to find inspiration in college. We seek friends who love to converse about our common curiosities and who can prod us into our potential; we learn from professors who infect us with their passions; we imbibe books or speeches that ignite our interest; sometimes we just look up at our breathtaking campus and think about what an accomplishment it was for us to be invited in.

So my challenge and prayer for us is to discover new inspirations after we depart. Maybe it’ll be a quote taped to your bathroom mirror that reminds you why you chose your field. Maybe a photo from a moment of unstoppable triumph. Maybe a book, a note, a place—find and keep it in front of your eyes and heart.

As for me, I have chosen politics—a realm notorious for hardening people into cynics who forget why they picked that path. I chose it because I care about creating a more equal, democratic world—and I’ll be looking for means to remind myself, starting with perhaps David Foster Wallace’s Kenyon College commencement address or my favorite familial saying, “Give more than you get,” or probably a few “West Wing” episodes. And of course, everything I learned here about leadership and service, as well as the encouraging, enlightening, cherished friendships—I’ll be taking those too.

So finally, to all those who have challenged, motivated and inspired me here, thank you and best of luck. I am excited to see what we make of ourselves.

Godiva Reisenbichler | Student Life

The prospects for our graduating class are so terrifying that we’ve even heard scattered reports of seniors scouring the Internet in search of more light-hearted diversions, like stories about pandemics or terrorist attacks.

That’s where this column comes in. No, I’m not going to offer you a job nor am I going to provide you with any useful advice that might help you find a job. Instead, I’m going to diagnose the precise level of appropriate anxiety you should be having about your job prospects so that you can self-medicate accordingly.

One margarita: You already have a job. You’re only reading this column because you wanted to hear more about dropkicking kittens. Either that or you’re so Type A that you continue to gather career advice obsessively despite signing an offer six months ago, in which case you should drink more because you obviously need help learning to relax. The rest of you are fine, but you still get a drink because, well, the real world is scary.

Full pitcher of sangria: You don’t have a paying gig yet, but you’ve been preparing for this moment since your first take-your-child-to-work day when you scribbled all over 10 pads’ worth of missed call notices. You know your chosen field; you’ve got 10 interviews lined up, and you’re pretty confident that one day, you too will be fodder for glossy Career Center posters. You should drink to ease the nagging voice in your head that thinks you had a typo in one of your cover letters.

Your own personal handle of vodka: Your resume is still either three pages or three lines long, you have no idea what to do with a B.A. in anthropology and the thought of graduation is starting to give you hives. Drink liberally—just don’t post the pictures on Facebook. You’re unemployable enough already without photographic evidence of your stumbling desperation.

Ten Prozac and a paper bag for hyperventilation: You still think job hunting involves killing strangely named birds. No alcohol for you—you’ve already spent three-quarters of senior year in a drunken near-coma. You’re also a classics major. You should probably just give up now and start applying to grad school. What’s Latin for “you’re screwed”?

Now for the disclaimer: People who rely on Student Life for medical or mental health advice tend to end up jobless and hospitalized. Instead, you should seek a second opinion—if for no other reason than to create more employment opportunities for all the pre-meds.

And one more thing—don’t freeload off of other people’s alcohol. It’s the first step to a lifetime of freeloading off of your parents. And like I said, their basement is scary. Unless, you know, you like fake wood paneling and bright red shag carpet mixed with old disco records. But if that’s the case, you probably have bigger problems to worry about.

Kate Oberg | Student Life

We’ve all seen it. The philosophy book, the Women and Gender Studies article, even a piece of literary criticism assigned by the English Department—which one would reasonably expect to be a bastion of good writing—that is utterly incomprehensible. You underline, you highlight, you print 10,000 pages worth of mind-numbing density in the ArtSci Lab and you muddle through. But if anyone’s being honest, even your professor probably can’t quite decipher it.

After nearly four years in the ivory tower, I’ve become convinced that the problem is not that undergraduates are dumb. It’s that academics aren’t smart enough.

Bad writing is easy. Admit it, you’ve written a paper in one night that was so padded with strings of excess like “It seems we therefore must conclude after careful examination that the only possible result is,” that the final product is not an essay; it’s a cure for insomnia. But, hey, at least it meets the minimum page requirement!

Still, wordiness is only one part of the problem. Some academics couch their points in so many qualifying statements that their work reveals nothing but their terrible fear of expressing an actual opinion. Statements like “Academic writing is soul-crushing” become “I believe, in my humble view, and of course many other sources disagree, that while some academics write very well, others tend to be in need of some minor improvements.” (The best way to improve that sentence might be to substitute the last two words with “lobotomies.”) It makes me question how many academics have ever described murder as “an incidence in which someone may have been forcibly expired.” The only crime evident in a sentence like that is the one committed against the English language.

And yet the charges do not end there. Academic writers often use jargon and SAT words with such frequency that I want to throw copies of George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” at them until the only words they know are monosyllabic. (Or at the very least until they stop using words like “monosyllabic.”) Impressively large words have their place, but they obscure meaning more often then they enhance it. Academics also tend to use such words with horrific imprecision, as if they scrolled through a thesaurus until they reached the word with the greatest number of letters. Their high school English teachers would disapprove—and we should too.

The problem is so widespread that I do not think we can fault individual writers exclusively. I sometimes wonder whether tenure is granted according to the number of incomprehensible words evident on one’s curriculum vitae. I have also heard stories of scholars who chose to write terribly for fear that clear English would make their ideas seem too simple to be taken seriously. That is absurd. A healthy academic culture should prize scholarly work that is both well-crafted and well-communicated. Clearer writing would also enable academics to have more influence on real-world policies and actions, a worthy goal that is too often neglected by today’s universities.

The current generation of professors is probably beyond my reach, but to my fellow students who intend to pursue a Ph.D., please—for your own sake as much as for undergrads everywhere—write like the intellectuals you are.

Doctrines are the Oscars of foreign policy; they’re exciting and attention-grabbing, ambitious in their attempt to showcase serious intellectualism and creative thinking and—when done correctly—make great fodder for the history books. And since we, as the next generation of citizens and policymakers, will be tasked with managing the resulting spin from this potential new doctrine, we should show a bit more interest and enthusiasm in the topic than James Franco did Sunday night (Slight digression: Seriously? Who gets bored hosting the Oscars?).

In order for a new doctrine to be successful, it must effectively balance two crucial and sometimes contradictory priorities—the practical need for Middle Eastern allies in fighting terrorism and countering the influence of Islamic fundamentalism, and the moral need to support those who seek the same political rights that we cherish at home. The first without the second would be hypocritical; the second without the first would be too dangerously idealistic.

The doctrine President Obama should establish, therefore, is one of locally-initiated engagement. As we have seen in Iraq, forcibly removing authoritarian regimes entails a cost in lives and dollars that we cannot afford. Absent regime change, most measures we could take to preemptively spark democratic reform would damage our relationships with allies in a region that is vital to U.S. interests. Where local pro-democracy movements exist, however, the U.S. should exercise the fullest range of its moral authority to support reformers. This could include statements and speeches that express solidarity with the dissenters, private negotiations with authoritarian leaders, technological assistance, economic sanctions when dictators use force against their own people and, where feasible and useful, financial support for organized pro-democracy groups. Once dictatorial regimes are toppled, the U.S. should offer assistance in writing any necessary constitutions or constitutional amendments and establishing and monitoring free and fair elections.

One of the greatest challenges of responding to the current wave of protests has been that distancing ourselves from authoritarian allies could discourage other leaders around the region from continuing to cooperate with U.S. aims, out of fear that our support for their governments will evaporate just as quickly. The advantages of a doctrine like this are that it would create a clear expectation of when U.S. allegiances would shift, as well as incentives for authoritarian leaders to initiate reforms before protests erupt.

At the same time, this approach would ensure that America does not land on the wrong side of revolutionary history. Not only is this a moral concern, but we also risk losing significant influence in the region if we come to be viewed as the back brace of dictators. One of the most disturbing headlines to emerge in the past few weeks is that Iran might be the winner, at least for now, of the changes sweeping the region. There is a real danger that secular dictatorships in the Middle East may be replaced with repressive theocracies that are just as callous toward individual rights, as happened in Iran in 1979. Lending support to democratic revolutionary movements is one way to encourage newly-forming governments to remain pro-West. Attempting to assist with the transition to democracy is important for the same reason.

For undemocratic countries that are already hostile toward the U.S.—Iran being the primary example and Libya being a close second—the U.S. should do everything it can, short of military invasion, to support democratic protest movements. This should include harsh economic sanctions. For democratic countries that remain or become reliable U.S. allies, the U.S. should provide foreign aid, both military and economic, to ensure that those countries continue to be bastions of stability in the region. At the moment, Israel is the most stably democratic and most solidly pro-West and it is therefore essential that we provide Israel with the military technology and financial assistance it needs to maintain its military superiority within the region. Cutting our dependence on foreign oil would also better enable us to navigate the new foreign policy challenges we face.

The American promise is a declaration that every person has the right to a voice in his or her own government and destiny. The great challenge of this moment is to make that promise an enduring reality across the globe.

Treasury exists to serve the interests of the student body and the needs of SU student groups. Unfortunately, its funding choices often fail to reflect student preferences. Events that are poorly attended, or even reviled, are funded too frequently; events that have a great deal of potential are sometimes choked off at inception. The budgeting and appeals processes invariably leave student group leaders frustrated and unsatisfied. In order to better fulfill Treasury’s twin responsibilities to the student body and student groups, I propose the following:

1) Require members to hold a leadership position in an SU student group either before or during their term in office—SU student groups live and die by the funding they receive from Treasury, but sometimes it seems Treasury members are ill-informed about the actual realities of student group operations. For instance, I have seen Treasury partially fund programs without determining whether the sponsoring group will be able to raise the remaining money. I have seen Treasury fully eliminate PR budgets that would have enabled groups to carry out the type of creative advertising necessary for a successful event. I have seen Treasury fund registration fees for students to attend relevant conferences but decline to fund the corresponding airfare. These selective funding decisions often seem arbitrary and impose frustrating, needless barriers on the creativity of student groups.

I strongly believe that students who plan programs or budgets for their own student groups have the clearest understanding of what all groups need. Too often, Treasury members join the body immediately after programs like SU’s leadership pre-orientation, and while these students can be great additions to SU, their lack of experience in the Washington University community is disadvantageous. While this requirement might present some conflicts of interest, treasury members could simply recuse themselves from any discussion about the student groups they lead.

2) Limit the time allotted for discussion of every appeal—Treasury currently has the constitutional ability to set time limits on its deliberations, but it rarely exercises that power. The result is that meetings run long into the night, which is a major barrier for students who contemplate running for a Treasury seat. Worse, the unlimited discussion does not penalize members who repeat points that have already been made. This alienates visitors and potential candidates alike. Because Treasury needs intimate knowledge of the Wash. U. community in order to be effective and genuinely representative, it benefits from having members who are heavily involved around campus. The more active students are in other leadership roles around campus, the more accurately they can predict what events will interest the student body. Yet while busy student leaders have so much to offer Treasury, the perceived burdensome time commitment often dissuades stellar students from running. While thorough consideration of appeals is important and Treasury does need members who take its responsibilities seriously, the inefficiency of the current meeting structure is a problem that needs to be remedied.

3) Reduce the number of seats—during nearly every election cycle, the number of seats up for election exceeds the number of candidates. The lack of competition means that students are unable to make true choices about who will represent them best. The new Treasury election schedule may help increase competition, but it remains unproven. Reducing the number of seats could also help reduce the length of meetings because fewer people would be participating in each discussion. This change could possibly put an unreasonable burden on Treasury members during budget season, when members meet with treasurers from each SU group, but a committee of additional students, chosen by appointment, could easily assist with this responsibility. As a corollary to this proposal, candidate statements should be more thorough and easily accessible in order to help students cast more informed votes.

These are not the only changes that could improve Treasury, nor are these proposals free from their own drawbacks and flaws. They are, however, an attempt to spark a conversation, one that is constructive, positive and specific, about how to make our collective visions for this campus into reality.

A few possible answers (if you’re taking notes, see the Section 1839573957 of the University’s academic integrity policy, which explicitly prohibits plagiarizing from “that column you saw in StudLife”): The American Dream is having the opportunity to succeed, no matter what your background. It’s owning your own home and your own car. It’s participating freely in the democratic process. It’s King’s dream. It’s Gatsby’s dream.

The tricky thing about this dream is that it is malleable, fickle even; it’s like the dream you had one night when you were seven, the meaning and details of which have shifted over time. It means different things to different people, and yet it is perhaps our country’s most singular point of reference.

In his State of the Union address this week, President Obama laid out his own vision of the American Dream. He spoke about the promise, now increasingly out of reach, that hard work could guarantee people “a job for life, with a decent paycheck, good benefits, and the occasional promotion.” He characterized our nation’s founding principle as “the idea that each of us deserves the chance to shape our own destiny.” In his conclusion, he talked about the dream “that says this is a place where you can make it if you try” and that “this is a country where anything’s possible.”

It was an eloquent and moving outline of a dream worth preserving. An America where everyone is offered the chance to reach his or her full potential is a worthy ideal and should be our country’s foremost aspiration.

And yet there are other definitions of the American Dream, definitions that are less ideal and that are past their expiration date. The American Dream should not be a constant search for more. It also should not be purely an individualistic pursuit.

The first objective is problematic because it can never be fulfilled. Big, bold ambitions are essential to the greatness of this country, but if we do not limit ourselves to an achievable standard, we will be a country that is always unsatisfied, always looking for a bigger house or a better place. It is this version of the American Dream that created mortgages we could not pay and an economic bubble we could not sustain.

The second objective has deep cultural roots, but it is also flawed. The American Dream is not American at all, nor is it much of a dream, if it does not extend to everyone. We cannot be just a nation of cowboys; we need to be a community, one that extends its arm to those at the bottom and supports those who fall.

As college students at an elite university, we are uniquely positioned to choose our own American destiny. One option is that we forget the financial collapse, go to Wall Street, become investment bankers and make a lot of money selling things that do not really exist. Then we can lobby the government for tax cuts.

Or we can do something better. We can heed the president’s call and become teachers. We can become the pioneering engineers and entrepreneurs behind clean energy. We can cure diseases. We can invent the next Facebook.

Either way, our own futures will almost certainly be successful. The only open question is whether we will choose to lift up our country and our world along with us.

Erin Mitchell | Student Life

I’m starting to feel neglected. I always wanted to be the most important part of your life, but lately, I feel like you keep pushing me aside to make time for your other “priorities.” And when we do spend time together, you’re always late. Most nights, we don’t even meet up until like 3 a.m. What kind of relationship is that?

Sure, we spend some quality time together on weekends, but I’m getting sick of being your two-days-a-week fling. It’s not only that your weekend alcohol binges ruin the quality of our time together. Saturday and Sunday just aren’t enough anymore. You need to make time for me on weeknights. Seven to eight hours, in fact, would be ideal, but heck, I’d settle for six.

I long for the days when we’d curl up in bed together—pajamas on, lights off, no distractions. I felt so much more appreciated. Now, I’m lucky if you remember to brush your teeth. Sometimes, they even look stained, as if you might be cheating on me with that tall, dark friend of yours.

And then there’s this library business. I’ve tried to tell you a hundred times, the library is just not an acceptable location for our rendezvous. And you never leave us enough time there either. It usually takes at least 90 minutes for me to lead you to your dreams.

I know you’re busy, and I know that I’m not the most exciting thing in your life anymore, but I truly do believe you’re better off with me. You’re happier, healthier, more alert. You keep blaming schoolwork for your inattention, but the truth is, even your grades improve when we hang out. Sure, I miss you, but this letter is really about what’s best for you.

Besides, deep down, I know you miss me too. You know how great we are together. Let’s face it: I bring out the best in you. And you’re lucky to be with me. Some people lie awake in bed for hours every night, wondering if they’ll ever find me. I’m confident we can make this work. You just need to rethink your to-do list a bit. Add some balance to your life. Come on, you know you want me. You just have to work a little harder for it.

Love,

Sleep

P.S. The gym sends her regards as well. She said she hasn’t seen your red biker shorts in months. Maybe you should stop by for a quick ride?

Or, at least, so the story goes.

The low turnout is an undisputed fact. Youth voting basically returned to pre-2006 midterm levels, completely bypassing the slight increase in the 2006 midterms and the dramatic rise in 2008. According to an analysis conducted by researchers at the Center for American Progress, voters between the ages of 18-29 years old dropped to 11 percent of the electorate, down from 18 percent in 2008 and 13 percent in 2006. For an age cohort that, according to the Census Bureau, represents about 18 percent of the total population, such regression is disappointing.

And really, anyone who was on campus in both 2008 and 2010 doesn’t need numbers to know that participation dropped radically. I feel a strange mix of nostalgia and regret at the idea that younger readers won’t understand this and that we collectively failed to provide them with the same enthusiastic political climate that we managed to create in 2008. So I suppose you’ll just have to trust that, to upperclassmen, the engagement gap is painfully obvious.

Yet the permanence of this assertion is not yet determined. The truth is that this story is still being written, and we are its authors. Our generation is at a crossroads for political involvement—make the 2010 elections an aberration by engaging ourselves or let others write our political future instead.

If senior citizens remain this country’s most reliable voting bloc, we’ll continue funding Social Security and Medicare at levels that support this generation of elderly but bankrupt the system before we can benefit. We’ll ignore climate change because most voters won’t be around to experience its consequences. Funding for higher education will languish because college students don’t show up. In short, we’ll keep kicking our country’s problems down the generational road for us to deal with once it’s basically too late. I’m sure you love your grandparents, but that doesn’t mean you should let them vote for you.

So back to the atmosphere of 2008. I think what truly disappoints me most about the turnout patterns and results of last week’s election is that I so badly want us to hold onto the hope we felt then. And yeah, I know plenty of you voted for John McCain. But for those who voted for Obama, I believe we had a real sense that our votes represented a turning point, a moment when we were able to take control of our political system and set the country on the course we wanted.

To become disillusioned now would mean to surrender. It would mean admitting that we are powerless to create change and that we were not, after all, the ones we were waiting for. I know that the vitriol and frustration of the past two years has encouraged this feeling. And yet, I don’t want disillusionment to win. Belief is a much more agreeable state of mind. I also think it’s more realistic.

Maybe it’s hard for a generation accustomed to high-speed Internet and its ensuing lightening-fast results to grasp the idea of gradual progress. But even though it now takes 15 seconds to look up the definition of change online, implementation still takes time. And in politics, nothing happens quickly.

The choice is ours. Let’s make sure the book on millennial political involvement is not finished yet.

My thought experiment came up short. I considered a few potential contenders, but none has had the actual reach or impact I was seeking. David Foster Wallace is a cult favorite, but one limited primarily to English majors. Thomas Friedman’s ideas seem to have influenced our worldview, but I’m not sure many students have actually read his books, nor do I think they reach the intellectual level of Sartre. My personal favorite, On the Road, seems widely read, for class if for nothing else, but it certainly does not belong to our generation. Even traditional classics are skipped over by many students because courses that feature them are not required here.

Wash. U. clearly excels at turning out qualified engineers, pre-meds and other skilled, single-discipline practitioners. We all know a great deal about our majors, but once we leave the library, I fear we leave it behind. When it comes to our informal education, the one we are supposed to gain from our peers in late night dorm-room discussions, I worry, is Wash. U. intellectual enough?

It is possible that I’ve been hanging out in the wrong hallways all these years, but I have found to my disappointment that deep intellectual discussions are the exception rather than the rule. From my experience, it’s not just that our generation has no revolutionary philosopher to tear down our previously held core beliefs. It’s that our campus shows little interest in finding such a figure.

I would love for someone to prove me wrong, to point out the book I’ve been missing or to direct me to the appointed time and place where these discussions are happening.

Yet after three years here, I suspect that will not be the case. Maybe it’s because an unusually large percentage of our student body is studying the hard sciences and metabolic enzymes do not make great dinner table conversation. Or maybe our culture here is one that prizes personal achievement over the cultivation of knowledge and therefore success in our individual pursuits consumes the time that might otherwise be spent seeking universal truths.

Whatever the reason, I cannot help but think that our education is incomplete if we have not spent enough time grappling with the ideas of our day. It is not just a matter of excelling in our fields—of doctors being able to make considered ethical judgments or of policy makers gaining enough exposure in different fields to make informed decisions —though these too are important. It is also a question, I fear, of what kind of educated people we will become if we have not given sufficient thought to the world and our place in it.

We came here, presumably, because we wanted the best education we could acquire. Were we merely seeking a prestigious name on a diploma or did we come here wanting to learn?

Is it just me or are the freshmen getting smarter this year?

No, I don’t mean smarter as in less prone to heading to frat row in packs of 20. I don’t have any reason to believe that their common sense quotient has risen at all, especially from my lofty vantage point of senior year. I may have been just like them three years ago, but who still remembers that?

I mean more accomplished, more likely to have done research, completed internships, won national and international competitions—you know, all the things students have traditionally waited to do until after Orientation.

So I’m a little worried about them. What if they’re superhuman college application robots who have no idea how to make the most of college? What if they join 30 student groups, burn out by sophomore year and end up forced to transfer to the University of Wisconsin? Clearly someone needs to save them from themselves. (Or save the rest of us from worldwide domination. You’ve seen the robot movies.)

I believe that we wise upperclassmen must take it upon ourselves to educate these youngsters, to teach them that the new “Paws and Go” should be called Bear Mart, that they need not pick extracurricular activities based on what might look good on a resume, and that a reasonable dose of mistakes and exploration never ruined anyone’s college career.

To assist you with your instruction, I offer the following Wash. U. fable. Once upon a time, before Bear’s Den had stir-fry, an eager young freshman arrived at Wash. U. Let’s call him “’11.” At this point in his first semester, little ’1l’s college experience was blur of free shirts, freshmen floor bonding and few worries.

Then the adventures began. ’11 failed his first test. Yet he still managed to pass the class and thus learned a lesson about perspective.

Not long after, ’11 began to realize that while he hated General Chemistry, he was quite intrigued by Lady Gaga 101. He considered ditching his lifelong dreams of doctorhood. When the world did not immediately swallow him up upon thinking these treacherous thoughts, he decided to follow his new passion instead. Years later, he would become a well-respected Gaga-ist.

’11 continued his exploration into extracurricular activities. He tried a variety of new things, some weird, some meaningful. By senior year, he held leadership roles in the groups he was most passionate about and found that the rest did not fit on his resume.

After four years of trial, error and happy memories, ’11 made it to senior year. Our now wise and mature ’11 was able to avoid his worst cardboard box fears and landed himself a job.

Okay, so that last paragraph might not be for the freshmen. Still, there you go. Take this instructional tale, head down to Epcot (you know you’ve been looking for an excuse to try out the new Bear’s Den anyway), and teach these newbies everything they really need to know.