#DearDePauw , as a first year student still experiencing and learning about campus as a whole, I am mindful enough to admit that I am ignorant to many experiences discussed on this thread in the past few days. As much as I do honor and support the critical discussions currently being had, I am not yet educated enough to join the discussion. Instead however, if there is anything I do know and acknowledge is that the ability to change anything on this campus exists strongly among my fellow first years. So instead, I’ll follow my dear friend Greisys lead and speak in a slightly different direction. #DearDePauw2018 I love you, I sincerely do. You have stood side by side with me since September as we struggled to become accustomed to college. We’ve stressed ourselves out in the same classes with the same professors. We have joined the same clubs, rocked the same parties, and complained about the same shitty food all together. We have stumbled together up stairs, past R.As, right into the first bathroom we could get to before we lost half the crap in our stomachs (half of us never made it to the bathroom anyway). We have become as close as humanly possible in a short amount of time and that is because we all openly experienced the same emotion the second we met eyes on move in day. Curiosity. Once this semester ends and we swing into the next, this curiosity will begin to melt into consistency. Habits will form and clicks will be set in stone. We’ll call home a lot less and worry about whether or not Greek life is for us a lot more. Soon after that we will stand on the sideline, clapping our hands together for the next group of first years to take that monumental commencement stroll through those gates just as we had, but by then it will be too late to change. At that moment we will have already joined DePauw as just another drop of water in the sea. So instead I’ll ask of our class, the new drop in this beautiful pond, to make a ripple. A tide. A tsunami. The raw curiosity we have has momentarily lowered most if not all of our social barriers. Our page in the DePauw book is still clean. Lets write something worth reading. To the greatest class to ever walk through the gates of DePauw, I challenge you this. Sit at a different table. One where no one looks similar to you, plays the same sport as you, or even has the same class. Then, and only then do I dare you; No… double dare you to ask a stranger a question, not a half-assed one such as “how are you.” Instead ask meaningful questions such as: “Where are you from? What sort of life did you live there?” How was life with your family? What did your best friends do on the weekend?” Do you practice a religion? What is it like? Want to hear about mine? Discuss similarities and differences?” In other words my dear fellow first years, I challenge you to be curious, to be human, to open yourself up and do what you came to do here at DePauw University. Learn, change, and grow. Thank you for reading my overly worded letter that Professor Sununu would probably have me rewrite a couple times. - Jay You must be the change you wish to see in the world. - Gandhi
Posted on: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 04:49:59 +0000
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