Asked to be an adult: treated like a child

Catherine Story
Managing Editor

Our managing editor grinds her axe. Whose head is on the chopping block? Thankfully not mine this time.

Independence is a relative term in a civilized society. Here at LSC independence is relatively limited.

When my parents and older sibling described college life it was labeled as a time of experimentation and exploration. College is a time to make decisions, good and bad.
Here at LSC students are not treated like young adults who can make decisions for themselves.

The halls of dorms and academic buildings are littered with bulletin boards plastered with big bubbly letters telling students about the next magician or some generic
alcohol awareness study

Perhaps it’s a holiday and there’s a party in the student center where students can grab a handful of snacks and paint a pumpkin.

As a teenager I babysat and many of the crafts and educational activities I have witnessed on this campus remind me of the games I would play with the 4 and 7-year olds that I spent my summers watching. These games were dull then and seven years later I am still not interested.

The effort to involve LSC students is admirable but it is being tackled with the wrong intentions.

On-campus students are supposed to be able to turn to their RAs for help when they are feeling stressed out or uncomfortable. The idea is a peer-to-peer support system. Unfortunately resident assistants are not students just like everyone else. They are not allowed to be.

Resident assistants are nervous and understandably. They can lose their job and have to pay for their living expenses if they are in the presence of students breaking rules. If an RA wants to have a drink they need to request the time off in advance. These are not good examples of mature students acting responsibly on their own. This is just another image of students following the many rules to get through the LSC experience.

If any student is feeling stressed out on campus they could just stop in at their resident assistants room. Here they will see a student who in exchange for free housing has given up the college experience replacing it with mandatory time in their room and consistent badgering by resident hall directors about not redecorating those childish bulletin boards every week or month or however often they put new construction paper on that wall that no one looks at.

Actually don’t bother walking over to your RAs room. You can ask them next time they knock on your door and come into your cubicle of privacy because of possible bottles clanking. They are only there to make sure you’re not doing anything illegal like making too much noise or drinking anywhere but in your bed. Because we all know that’s a healthy way to introduce young adults to alcohol. You can only drink in the privacy of your bedroom.

Not everyone here at LSC can drink legally, this is the justification for sending the of-age to his or her semi-private room. Why must we shelter our younger students from the life that they are so desperately trying to experience?

Peer leaders and INT classes carry first year students who are treated like sheltered children as opposed to young adults striking out on their own. There is nothing more degrading than having to pay for a class that tells you how to be an independent adult in a place where you’re not allowed to try it for yourself.

So my point is, step back and let the student body of Lyndon State College act like a body of college students. Maybe if they were treated like adults they would act like adults and participate in and create clubs and activities that they are interested in as opposed to trying so hard to get off campus and tune themselves out of campus activities.