Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Activism and College Life

In my last entry i spoke about the affect of the undergraduate voice and the power that a college student possesses. This seems to me like a solid topic to start on. I would like to take it a step further though. After reading a chapter out of Michael Moffatt's "Coming of Age in New Jersey", i became very interested in the lives students live behind closed doors. I feel that this particular life style molds a student and plays a very important part in the way he/she gets involved in student activism. I researched the topic of student activism as well as college life. I ended up with more information on student activism and not as much on college life. The college life information that i received was not in the direction that i would have liked. A standard Google search provided me with great information on student activism. It brought up information about recent protests at Berkley in California, the 1960's protest at Berkley and information on the power of student activism. The two best links i found for this topic were http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/may2008/id20080530_606257.htm
and http://studentactivism.net/2009/12/18/berkeley-responds/ . These links describe the power of activism and situations were student activism played an important role.
Controversy plays a big role with student activism. There are always two sides to this. For example, in the Berkley situation, you had the students and then you had the administration. Both parties believe in two different things, but they both believe they are right. This is what sparks controversy.

From here i need to narrow down my topic a little bit more and see how i can incorporate student living and lifestyle. I need to find more information on student living and how it can affect their level of activism.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Undergrad Voices

The reason that i registered for this class was to fulfill my writing requirement. I didn't know what to expect from a class that was soley entitled "College!". It seemed strange to me at first, but after thinking about it for a while i figured it'd be about college life in general. My questions about this class were answered after the first day. We discussed the impact of a young community at Berkley in California and what college brings to the mainstream world. When I say "mainstream world" I mean the frontlines with respect to politics, world events and the mainstream media of course. College students play a very important part in the mainstream world. Young people are the voice of that particular generation, and that generation of the present will produce the leaders of the future. This is why it is very important to listen to these voices and pay attention to the different things that college students do. I'm not sure on what my concrete research topic will be, but I feel very strong about college student activity and the role that young people play in our mainstream world. I think that students hold more power than they know and that power has a lot of potential. It can change the world in drastic ways and it is only a matter of time before a situation like the one at Berkley comes to our University at Rutgers. The students here are very active in politics and community affairs. Rutgers' students are a different breed in a way. I feel like they are persistent in pursuing what they think is right. They can be a annoying at times, but they are only fighting for what they believe in. Persistence is what separates us from most schools and this is why i feel we will see another Berkley situation here on the shores of the Raritan.