CONTRIBUTING WRITER,
STAFF WRITER
In our modern age of instant connection, it’s easy to see how we’ve become so accustomed to being able to instantly get in touch with and hear back from anyone we choose. But adjustment is a far cry from obsession, which some people today seem to be infringing on with their devices and conversations.
The seasons change in a perfect cycle of inevitability, like the setting and rising of the sun and moon. During college, every semester brings new experiences, struggles, and growth. When the end of the fall semester approaches, it causes us to look back and see how to go about these few short weeks before winter break. Some students crack down studying for finals, and others do nothing at all. As it always has, and will, the real stories come from the students of Monmouth themselves.
As students on the cusp of adulthood, we can often find ourselves reminiscing about simpler times of our childhood, filled with long afternoons of no responsibility. It’s certainly nostalgic to recall the days where our biggest concern was what type of cereal we would have for breakfast, or when our favorite TV show was going to be on. But even though our peaceful days are long gone, we know that the experiences of our childhood shaped us and affected who we became today.
Many students, particularly freshman, have changed and grown in their time here at college. Freshman arrived two and a half months ago and have since fully experienced a portion of the college experience. Living on your own, being responsible for all your work, with no one to tell you to do your homework or study for a test, living in a dorm allows students to be in charge of their own academic career.
Since the introduction of instant messaging to society, whether it was internet chatrooms, emails, or texting, people have started to condense, modify, and alter words in order to make them easier to type. LOL, JK, TTYL, etc. have dominated the digital word since they were created. But despite the ease and comfort in typing these casual words, the consequences on formality and sentence structure could be disastrous.
During college, there are certain “traditions” between students and teacher that we simply come to expect. The most infamous and well-known cliché is excuses. Specifically, a student making an excuse for themselves and seeing if a teacher will take pity upon their unavoidable calamity and not take off points for a late assignment. It’s fascinating, a student will go to such lengths to think up a believable reason to pitch the professor when that energy could have been better used with the original assignment.
At the end of October, the air gets a little foggier, shadows seem a little larger, and the Monmouth campus finally becomes enveloped in the season of scaring.
There is something about life on campus that just exudes the comfort; whether students are walking to class with friends as autumn leaves flutter from trees, throwing a football around on the quad, going out on the town or going to the beach. Students have freedom here: the ability to settle in, study and enjoy their new home.