College Students Don't Care [View All]

So I'm sitting here in the campus library like I do every Monday before my Medieval Lit class, minding my own business and laughing aloud while reading this week's Top 10 Conservative Idiots, when a fellow student pops up behind me.

Her: "Hey, what's so funny?"
Me: "It's an article on my favorite political site about conservative idiots."
Her: "Oh...is that, like, on You Tube or something?"
Me: "No."
Her: "You should go to You Tube, they have this REALLY funny video of this dog trying to bite his own balls, I've watched it, like, a million times."

...Right. To tell the truth, I'm not that surprised by this. Being politically active on today's college campus is a bit like coming to school with your pants on inside out, although I've seen people do that here and get less reaction than I do when I start talking about the movement to impeach Cheney ("..You want to make him a pie?"). No, I'm not surprised about it based on personal experience, but outside of that, hell, it blows me away.

I recently did an on-campus research study for a speech on political awareness I was working on for a speaking class. I polled as many students as I could, quizzing them on their knowledge of both pop culture news ("What is Britney Spears up to these days?") and political news (Who is the most recently appointed Speaker of The House?"). I also did research on college students from years past, including the students who started the protests at Tiananmen Square, those involved in the protests over the Kent State shootings, and the various and asundry instances of on campus protests of the War in Vietnam.

My findings on the knowledge possessed by current students were unsurprisingly tilted in favor of pop culture. Something like 25 percent of those polled couldn't name the two countries we invaded after 9/11, and 19 percent didn't know how many years there were between US Presidential elections. I remember, while polling a freshman comp class, I saw one girl lean over to her seat mate and ask, "It says "What do you think of the current situation in Iraq? ....What IS the situation?"

I just don't understand where my fellow college students went so wrong. The only protest I've ever seen going around campus was a myspace-inspired petition to change a dress code in a nearby high school so that students didn't have to have their shirts tucked in. And it's not like they just don't know much about the things going on in our world, it's really, HONESTLY, that they don't care. Every time I bring up something political during a class discussion (I'm an English major, so that happens a lot), it only elicits groans of disproval or confused, blank stares. I can't even remember how many people have been completely taken aback to learn that I'm their age and not an older college returnee.

So what the hell happened, that America's college campuses have grown so apathetic to political movement? What is wrong with the world that on such a well-known liberal/progressive website, there's not a college student discussion board? What happened, and why, and how do we fix it?

I'm a college student. I'm twenty years old, and I don't know that much about anything, but I'm trying to learn. I want to know everything. But most of all, I really want to know that I'm not the only person in my generation who feels that way. Somebody, come on, give me some hope.