Student Life Archives

We’re in the midst of a bullshitting epidemic. I’m not sure when it first infected academia – if it’s always been a key component, or if it’s a recent development – but now it seems almost impossible to find a humanities discipline where every paper (read: most papers) you write are sincere. For a while, I thought it was only within my specific major, philosophy, that pulling through half-hearted arguments and critiques one doesn’t really believe in was prevalent. The more I talk to people, though, the more it appears that coming up with a nonsensical criticism of something is the most important skill to master in order to get through college, whether you’re interpreting the meaning of artwork or writing about rhetorical strategy in literature.

In gender studies classes, we passionately argue that the word “women” should be written as “womyn” because including the word “men” within the word “women” somehow allows the English language to oppress females. I realize there are passionate defenses for focusing on changing the language that may or may not be important to our understanding of oppression and to our understanding of the world in general, but most of us developing these harsh critiques of the language don’t really believe any of what we’re saying. Let’s be honest. Most of what we write is just an argument that we can talk about for a few pages and then never think about again.

The problem isn’t just limited to gender studies or even fields where we theorize. In poetry class, we string together meanings from the numbers of syllables of different lines that are so obscure it seems almost impossible that the author could have really meant for the syllable count to have such an interpretation. We also often don’t believe the interpretation is accurate – but hey, we can argue for it.

We’re rewarded for our creativity in challenging issues in unusual ways, and we’re taught that we must find the creative angle, the view outside the box. It turns out that generally a practical analysis or any mainstream argument is insufficient because it’s been made before. The result is that we search for a new framework from which to consider a well-worn subject until we find our own original way of looking at something. While fresh ways to consider classic theories or works are important contributions to a discipline, it’s impossible to constantly find them. Despite the fact that it’s going to be impossible to always find a solid new paradigm, we need so badly to see something in a new light that we’ll be excited to knowingly hallucinate if we think it will give us a different vision. We prefer to take creative stances we don’t actually believe over traditional stances that do actually make sense to us.

So the next question is what we should think about the necessity to bullshit. On the one hand, it’s an important life skill. Crafting philosophical-sounding reasons why something ought to be done or accepted is important to being successful. On the other hand, the reason that’s important and the reason it works is that we’ve all been so eloquently trained in the art. If tomorrow’s leaders didn’t spend four years of their lives being rewarded for impractical but idealistic-sounding language, then maybe our culture wouldn’t be so infused with politicians and policymakers who make a living rallying us behind empty symbolic “causes” like banning flag-burning while the mainstream, difficult issues never receive serious discussion.

I’m not exactly saying our professors are directly responsible for the failure to solve the social security crisis, but there should be some sort of shift in education that asks us to think about issues practically. It would be beneficial in training people to think about solving actual problems. But then again, who really cares about ensuing poverty when we could spend our time learning to spell words differently?

Jill is a sophomore in Arts & Sciences and a Forum Editor. She can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].

At the Galleria this weekend, my friend and I overheard a group of high school girls giggling. “That better be put up on Facebook tonight!” one of them laughed. I laughed also, because I have definitely heard that phrase many times. Any time something happens – a funny quote, a cute picture, an interesting event – everyone rushes to post it on Facebook. I watch my free time and would-be homework time devoured by “just two minutes” on Facebook. For many of us, our world is being pervaded and overtaken by Facebook.

There are a few that have somehow avoided this time-consuming phenomenon and withheld from creating an account. Frankly, I am in awe. I don’t even know a college before Facebook; and I even have trouble remembering a high school before pokes, tagged photos and wall posts. I know I personally check my Facebook account multiple times when I am online, and fail to get any homework done while my Ethernet cord is plugged into my computer. This Internet-connectedness is not new or original, yet Facebook has arguably the most popularity in our age group. I had a Myspace account before Facebook, but it never permeated my life to any degree similar to Facebook. Something about the “only adolescents” idea drew me, and many others, into the Facebook abyss. The apparent privacy and the ease of communication with my friends from all over kept me coming back. And now I am stuck.

Now, whenever one of my friends takes a picture, everyone asks to be tagged. Sometimes, we even bring cameras to events for the sole purpose of posting the pictures later on Facebook. During a dance party, we posed for a picture just to be able to upload later. It has gotten to the point where some people aren’t actually having fun because it’s a good time; some people are simply doing crazy things to get it posted later on Facebook. Everyone wants to look “cool” and Facebook has made the internet an easy popularity contest- who has the most tagged pictures, the most posts, the most friends. In college, with over a thousand people in each class, getting to know a good deal of the school is practically impossible. Facebook is the solution to the high school cafeteria; nearly everyone is there watching, and can see who hangs with the cool crowd and who sits at the loser table.

Instead of getting to know someone personally, it is easier to search on Facebook and discover her favorite movie or his activities. If the only thing Gary knows is that Mary-Sue-across-the-hall has 362 friends and likes The Beatles, he might feel like he actually knows her. But in actuality, Mary Sue has no idea who Gary is because Gary is just another anonymous person living through Facebook instead of the real world.

Instead of going down the hall and having a conversation, some people feel like it is more simple to friend someone else on Facebook. Now, this definitely isn’t the case with everyone, but it can be argued that Facebook is redefining interactions and our world, in general. The ways we meet people and hang out with our friends, and especially the ways we spend our free time, are markedly dominated by Facebook.

So, even as I write this, I keep switching to check my account. No, I haven’t gotten any updates. I really don’t remember what deadlines were like before Facebook, but I am pretty sure they were never this difficult. All the same, I don’t plan on deleting my Facebook account anytime soon!

Caitlin is a freshman in Arts & Sciences. She can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].

Matt Rubin

A few weeks ago, during Facebook News Feed-gate, the nation witnessed the sheer power of its youth. To be honest, even I was amazed at the level of vigor displayed by students across college campuses. It was almost as if there were a full-fledged war going on.

The protests inspired me to take initiative of my own and lead the fight on another important issue, but first I had to find one. To look for ideas, I turned on the television. I couldn’t find anything worthy of my effort on the boring channels like CNN or MSNBC, so I continued to Comedy Central to find The Colbert Report. On the show, Stephen Colbert was visited by the Hungarian ambassador to the United States, András Simonyi, who informed Colbert that Hungary would name a bridge near Budapest after him. It was at this point that it dawned on me that there is nothing on Washington University’s campus named after Stephen Colbert. My original thought was to change the name of Hilltop Campus to Colbert Campus, but someone informed me that it had already been changed to Danforth Campus. (There really should’ve been signs or announcements about that one). I then realized that the future Student Center has yet to be named after anybody. I said to myself out loud, “The Stephen Colbert Student Center.” It rolled right off the tongue.

The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. Our school’s motto is “Per Veritatem Vis,” which means “Strength through Truth.” Who better to honor than Stephen Colbert, the man who pumps truth to his audience four nights a week? By naming the new Student Center after Colbert, we can even work to help him. Colbert has repeatedly expressed his phobia of bears; he has put grizzly bears “on notice” and called them “godless killing machines.” Let’s help Stephen Colbert overcome his phobia by showing him that not all bears are so bad.

Now, I know some of you may be asking, “What has Stephen Colbert done for Wash. U.?” You’re thinking on too small of a scale. The correct question to ask is “What has Stephen Colbert done for America?” This one is much easier to answer. On his program, The Colbert Report, he courageously defends this great nation from those who want to see it perish: Hollywood, educated liberal elitists, and Democrats. Colbert is also a philanthropist. Through The Stephen and Melinda Gates Foundation, he, along with Microsoft CEO Bill Gates’ wife, serves the downtrodden. On top of all of these noble efforts, Colbert found the time to author a novel, “Stephen Colbert’s Lady Nocturne: Alpha Squad 7: A Tek Jansen Adventure.” The novel’s compelling prose is cause enough for naming the Student Center after him.

The Hungarian government isn’t the only government to distinguish Stephen Colbert. The great (or perhaps, greatest) President of the United States, George W. Bush honored Colbert by giving him center stage at this year’s White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner. It is our duty as Americans to support our commander-in-chief, and by extension, those who support him, such as Stephen Colbert. The San Francisco Zoo has done so; they named a newborn eagle Stephen Junior earlier this year.

Unfortunately, Wash. U. wouldn’t be the first educational institution to honor Stephen Colbert. Recently, Knox College in neighboring Illinois gave Colbert an honorary doctorate in fine arts. We need to up the ante. Let’s name our future, state-of-the-art student center “The Stephen Colbert Student Center” and show Knox College what it takes to be a university. We need to begin a campaign for change here at Washington University. We need to use the series of tubes that is “The Internets.” We need to stand up for heroes like Stephen Colbert who fight to keep America great. We need The Stephen Colbert Student Center. Someone start a Facebook group for it and invite me.

Altin is a freshman in Arts & Sciences. He can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].

Dear Editor:

The national voter turnout for 18 to 24-year-olds is approximately 47 percent for recent presidential elections, but for last week’s freshman class elections, only 24.9 percent of freshmen voted (“Freshman Class Election Results,” Sept. 25). Despite publicity on the CS40 Red Alert calendar, the chalk campaign ads on the sidewalks and the SUpdate in Student Life, fewer than one quarter of freshman knew, or chose, to vote on WebSTAC last Thursday and Friday.

Even if the campaign issues and promises were never publicized, one could at least resort to Facebook to cast a semi-informed vote.

If this is a problem of information, then Student Union should be more proactive in advertising future elections. If this is a case of apathy, we can only hope such indifference fades by the November elections.

-Brian Krigsher
Class of 2010

Dasani: for people, not dying goldfish

Dear Editor:

Last year, my Millbrook apartment went through an unfortunate two-week period during which half the residents fought for custody of six cute little goldfish, which my flatmate Rebecca and I had “liberated” from our sixth flatmate. We liberated them, you see, because that flatmate had decided to send her fish tank, filters, and – oh yes – the food and water purifying drops home early, leaving the little guys with nowhere to live but a tiny Tupperware container full of dirty water.

We’d loved those fish all year, and we weren’t about to let her kill them. So we took control of the situation. Despite the fact that neither Rebecca nor I possessed proper filtration equipment, we were determined to keep these fish alive.

Our first concern was their murky water, in which they might die at any time. But we didn’t have time then to drive out to PetSmart for purifying drops, so we instead ran down to the Village and bought two massive bottles of Dasani. I couldn’t find anything online or on the bottle about the chlorine content of the water, but I figured it was worth a shot. The fishies needed to live!

Now we come to the upshot of this letter: Dasani is not good for fish. The stuff is essentially filtered municipal water – which means it may still contain some level of chlorine. After we moved the fish to the bowl of clean, clear Dasani, our liberated fishies didn’t start breathing easier. No, they actually started to have more trouble breathing than before, gasping for air at the top of the bowl. Within minutes it was clear that they were going to have to go back into their murky water, which was still better for them than the chlorine-laced Dasani.

So Wash. U. fish owners, beware – Dasani will not keep your fish alive. You either need to let some water sit out for 24 hours so the chlorine can evaporate or make a quick stop at PetSmart for water tablets or drops. Or, you know, put them in Sprite and see just how long they last.

-Margaret Bauer
Class of 2006

It really isn’t surprising that Emory University has been a horrible rival. After all, if you’re planning on starting a rivalry where none previously existed, you had better come up with a plan that doesn’t involve piling a few friends into a car, making a nine hour trek from Atlanta to St. Louis, and then graffiti-ing a campus underpass that student groups regularly paint anyway. That said, two recent stories in the Emory Wheel, the school’s student newspaper, should spark interest in anyone who still cares about the rivalry.

The first was a news article about Emory’s recent climb to No. 18 in the U.S. News & World Report college rankings. The article emphasized not placing too much weight on the rankings, but it still pointed out that it had “shrunk the gap between Emory and its peer school in Missouri.”

The second article was about a different set of rankings published by the Washington Monthly magazine. Two years ago, the Washington Monthly decided to produce a new college ranking system where the best schools were the ones that benefit the country. To measure this, the rankings focused their attention on three things: social mobility (how well the school enables “Americans who are poor to become Americans who will prosper”), community service and research. Scoring this was complicated but it involved measuring a variety of things such as the percentage of students with federal student loans and the percentage of students involved in ROTC.

For parents and students who were tired of the U.S. News rankings, this new guide was a godsend. Of the top ten schools in the U.S. News, only two of them broke the top ten of the Washington Monthly. Harvard, which was previously No. 1, tumbled to No. 28. And for anyone who is curious, Wash. U. fell to No. 45.

But Emory’s fall was particularly brutal. Its No. 18 position in the U.S. News rankings did little to stop its drop to No. 96, which makes it slightly better than the University of San Diego but not quite good enough to overtake the University of San Francisco. The magazine pointed out this sudden drop to readers but, rather than offer conciliatory words to Emory, decided that a “Boo, Emory” would suffice.

But what particularly irritated students at Emory was the magazine’s assertion that it “had decided reaching out to poorer students is a low priority.” The school’s reaction was predictable. “According to Washington Monthly, Emory is a hotbed for rich students who contribute little,” wrote the Emory Wheel. “Such tired stereotypes do little more than sell magazines and create controversy.” Perhaps, but it appears that in Emory’s case, this stereotype is at least partially true. The rankings found that only 13 percent of the students at Emory receive Pell grants, which are federal loans for poor college students. That’s not exactly a number to brag about, as the Emory Wheel admits, and it certainly doesn’t indicate that a large number of poor students attend the school.

Yet that’s not what Emory should be worried about. Low economic diversity is a problem, but it’s also eminently fixable just by changing the way students are recruited. What really slammed Emory was the fact that its affluent student body and high SAT scores produced a graduation rate that was, to say the least, unimpressive. The Washington Monthly used the percentage of students with Pell grants, as well as SAT averages, to predict graduation rates. It found that Emory’s expected graduation rate was 87 percent. The actual graduation rate was 66 percent. To put that in perspective, you would find a similar graduation rate at the University of Iowa and other large state schools. But hey, in the spirit of our friendly rivalry (or whatever it’s called these days), here is a piece of advice for Emory, courtesy of Dr. Rebecca Goldin at George Mason University. However inconvenient a fact it may be, it remains true that “world-class scholarship is not always housed in universities committed to social mobility.”

As the Emory Wheel rightly noted, the National Cancer Institute did not recently give the school a $7.5 million grant because of the percentage of its alumni in the Peace Corps. It did so because its scientists have demonstrated a keen ability to find breakthroughs in lung cancer research. Sure, that may not do very much to foster a spirit of national service and community involvement. But it certainly does more public good for the country than almost anything contributed by South Carolina State University (which, for reasons unknown to God himself, managed to scrape out a No. 9 ranking in the Washington Monthly).

Nathan is a junior in Arts & Sciences and a Forum editor. He can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].

Fast, reliable Internet access should be a basic amenity at an institution of Washington University’s size and resources. Unfortunately, this amenity is starting to seem more like a luxury students might one day hope to obtain.

Over one week ago, Internet slowdown issues led to the silencing of such programs as AOL Instant Messenger, upsetting many students. But ResTech and Network Technology Services (NTS) still have not fixed this problem. Furthermore, NTS has not gone about finding a solution in an appropriate way. So far, NTS has only addressed the short- term problem of users who take up too much bandwidth. Instead, NTS should be working on a long-term solution to ensure that we do not continue to run into slowdowns throughout the year.

The core of the problem is that ResTech does not have an adequate amount of bandwidth for its users. According to Matt Arthur, the director of network systems and operations at NTS, NTS allocates ResTech 520 megabits per second (Mb/s) of guaranteed bandwidth. ResTech has approximately 4,000 users. Though users are typically not online all at the same time, a significant slowdown occurs during peak hours between 4 p.m. and 1 a.m. During this time block, an average of 2,000 users go online at once, meaning that only 0.26 Mb/s are available to each user.

In comparison, Charter, the telecommunications company used by many off-campus residents, provides its customers with up to 3.0 Mb/s of bandwidth. Even assuming that, during busy hours, a user only gets 1-2 Mb/s, that’s still substantially more than what ResTech is providing.

To their credit, NTS and ResTech are trying their best to serve the needs of the students and they want to provide quality services. Even if they are failing to meet these needs, their failure is more a result of insufficient infrastructure than lack of effort.

The University must give NTS and ResTech the resources they need to bolster the network. The quickest way to prompt the University to do something is for Student Union to get involved and call for action. A swift, unified voice from the student body calling for better Internet service is the best way of achieving results.

NTS and ResTech should undertake additional reforms to ensure that users have sufficient bandwidth when they want it.

Arthur reports that on Monday night, NTS installed new software to track peer-to-peer (p2p) file sharing activity. As a result, traffic has decreased by 25 percent.

This is a good first step. During peak hours, a reasonable cap should be placed to ensure that no one is using an extreme amount of bandwidth. Furthermore, abusers of the network should be penalized with a lower bandwidth cap.

No substantial changes to the network have occurred since last year or the year before to cause sudden Internet outages. The network is just stressed beyond its capacity. ResTech and NTS need to ensure that the network grows to accommodate the demands of the student body, and the University needs to give them the resources to do so.