Daily Loaf

Each Fall an army of eighteen-year-old “adults” floods USF, expecting to finally set foot in the long prophesized “real world.” They soon discover that college, and the real world, are whatever these freshmen make of them.  In constructing their identities, most are required to take a basic writing course.

Creative Loafing has chosen four of those students to blog for the Daily Loaf.

These are their rants, insights, fears and hopes….

Don’t worry, I will not really talk about ketchup, even though there are a lot of great things I can say about ketchup. I eat ketchup with everything pretty much, but that is not what I want to say. I will explain myself with a story. I have been trying to invite one of my good friends to come over to my apartment to spent the night and have a some fun, but every single time she has some excuse, like a project, essay, she’d tired, so on and so forth. As I talked to her yesterday, she started explaining that she feels like she is playing catch up all the time, there is always something due the next morning that requires immediate attention.

Her accent really made it sound like she was saying “ketchup” and not “catch up”, so we has a good laugh, and a whole discussion on ketchup and food. But on more serious note, isn’t it the way so many people especially college students feel? …

There just seems to be so much that is expected of us. The modern definition of a successful member of society includes the ability to manage your financial affairs, help others, perform community work and be fun in a social circle — a lot for one person.

One of the scenes in the movie 21 precisely depicts the soaring expectations. In the scene the main character, Ben Campbell , is interviewed for Robinson’s scholarship which consists of a free ride through medical school. Ben is not an average student, he is some sort of genius; he has won all kinds of science fairs, successfully completed research projects, but the interviewer is looking for something on top of that. The interviewer wants something “practical” on a resume; he refers to a Korean guy with one leg who won this scholarship last year and mockingly suggests that Ben could cut his leg off. I don’t think you can picture the ridicule of all of expectations bestowed on students any more accurately than that.

It is not only the scholarship committees and medical schools that expect students to show the list at least a mile long filled with extracurricular activities, but it is all around. During the first weeks of my freshman year at USF I felt so pressured to “be a Bull!” and join as many organizations as I could from the 500 organizations that are out there.

I do appreciate the diversity of activities we as the students have at the campus, but why push people in it so much. By doing that, we just get well-rounded students who have tried everything and are doing everything but are not particularly good at anything they do. Most of the time, students are sleep deprived and actually do worse on the things which are top priorities, such as classes. It is quality that matters more.

So we get stuck playing ketchup games that go on and on in circles and do not stop even during the summer break.

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