It is entirely possible to spend four years at ETSU without sharing an opinion with your classmates. This is a bad thing.
It is easy to drift through without really meeting anyone new.
So, what is the college experience? Sitting alone in a dorm room eating junk food playing World of Warcraft? Not quite.
The real experience involves meeting people with similar passions and talking to them. Debates and discussions of everything: God, Homer, the Simpsons, video games, morality, sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.
So what is it about ETSU that makes it difficult to archive a real college experience?
Following are some reasons, in no particular order:
First, there is no strip. There is only Mid City Grill and the Acoustic Coffeehouse. The only problem with these amazing establishments is that there are only two of them. It is important to have places like these to hang out, eat and chat. Chat is very important.
Second, take a good long look at the library. What’s missing? A central reading room. There are plenty of little rooms, though – private rooms where no one can look at you. In a private room or cubical, it is possible to censor everything. There is no possible way to become offended or challenged.
Three, the university keeps tearing down our dorms. Why, if for nothing other than the sake of money, can’t the university just renovate? A dorm gets a community in it that is hard to duplicate.
Freshman dorms are incredibly important. Some universities require that freshmen and sophomores live in dorms or in campus housing. Why would anyone possibly do this? Perhaps, someone reasoned that people might meet other people.
Four, cheating and plagiarism are one thing, but collaboration is something different entirely. Some people are out for an easy ‘A’, that’s true, but telling students not to collaborate is ridiculous. This idea completely individualizes education.
It is not wise to have completely individualized education. We live in a society that values team work and collaboration, so why tell students not to talk about things together?
All these things contribute to keeping us, the student body, separate. If the student body mingled more, perhaps we would not have a ridiculously apathetic campus.

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