Opinion
Watching world-class athletes race, throw, jump and hurdle their way onto the Olympic team at the U.S. track and field trials in Eugene last month, I felt the excitement of the London games begin to creep up on me. As their chiseled, impeccably trained bodies reached astounding speeds and heights, I stood in awe at what the human body can achieve when trained into submission.
Years ago I was a teenage boy. Mostly I did not enjoy it. High school was a drag, and I made passing grades by the skin of my teeth. Since I was ugly and devoted to a style of dress that accentuated my awkward build, girls weren’t a reality. The few friends I had were as charmless as I was. Weekends were about bad music, Mountain Dew and whatever comic books I could afford on a fixed income.
Literacy rates in the U.S. are appalling. Approximately 32 million American adults lack basic literacy skills, according to the U.S. Department of Education, and a National Center for Education study found that 38 percent of fourth grade students fell below the most basic literacy level.
In the fall, Portland State senior Eric Wilkinson will be teaching a Chiron Studies course called The World of Roman Polanski. It took Wilkinson two terms to get the class approved, and when he put posters up to promote the course, people scrawled “Child Rapist” on them, forcing Wilkinson to put up new ones. Yes, Polanski is a controversial figure, but it’s time to get over it.
College students sighed in relief when Congress decided—at the 11th hour—not to allow interest rates on federally subsidized student loans to double on July 1. In an unusual display of bipartisanship, Congress voted to freeze the 3.4 percent rate for another year. Of course, this means that next June college students will face the same possibility; the only difference is it won’t be nearly as crucial a year.
Every couple weeks, I see a link going around Facebook to a petition that calls for the government to erase all student debt. The creator of the petition sells it as a “real economic stimulus and jobs plan” and claims that erasing student debt will basically solve all the economy’s problems. The petition is getting close to reaching its goal for signatures, but I don’t understand how anyone could delude themselves into believing that it will change anything.
Drugs and alcohol go hand in hand with university life. It’s become a joke—party your brains out, get up and go to class, rinse and repeat. Toss in a tailgate party and an all-nighter at the library and you’ve got the ingredients for the average college experience.
I was pretty upset when NASA was dealt huge funding cuts, and then I was upset again when it retired the space shuttle. I grew up in love with the idea of space travel (blame Star Wars), and I never grew out of it (blame Firefly). I figured since NASA was that much more inactive, the U.S. would have fewer and fewer people in space. But now I almost wish NASA had been scaled back sooner.
What with sexual assaults, threats of violence from a disgruntled student at midterms, suspicious package scares and a partial campus lockdown during finals week, Portland State hasn’t felt very safe lately. And what little information the university releases about these events comes through the emergency alert system first and then is uploaded to the PSU website.
Last summer, as a transfer student, I walked into my sophomore inquiry class wondering what pop culture had to do with my major. The University Studies program in general was a bit baffling to me and, suffice it to say, my goal was to complete my required classes as quickly as possible so I could move on to what I was really interested in.
More than a year has passed since the earthquake and resulting tsunami devastated Japan, killing almost 16,000 people and causing entire villages to disappear.