One of the realizations I’ve had in my young age is that all of life is a catch-22.
I just received a notice from my financial aid lenders; it read, “Congratulations from Sallie Mae. Our records indicate that you will graduate by this May. This is a reminder that you have a six-month grace period following you commencement date until you pay the following fee of”
It’s interesting, isn’t it? I’m paying to attend college in hopes that I will be able to enter a prestigious career and earn money, which in turn I end up paying back for having attended college in the first place.
Here’s another thing:
I was recently surfing the web, trying to see what kind of job market awaits me, and even here I was led in circles.
The fact that I’m actually a candidate to graduate after four years means that I couldn’t have possibly pursued working outside of school. So how is a person supposed to pay back his or her loans (that, I might add, have such an absurdly high interest rate) if all the jobs advertised require “at least 1 to 3 years experience?”
I just don’t understand the concept of “full-time student” being another way of saying “not qualified.”
And how about the average college student who does work, living off her paycheck, while fitting random classes into her tight schedule? What is her compensation? Well, let’s see. Besides exhaustion, inconsistent grades and a seven-year graduation plan, she at least gets the bonus of having her own money.
However, like all else, there is a catch for the working college student. Usually these students end up slipping away from their studies in the hopes of making more money, therefore they are less likely to get promoted because they never successfully received a diploma.
There is more to this crazy game of life than mere financial trouble. Take our country, for instance. Take this war.
OK, so the war is considered won, yet, there was a rather large cost to pay. I’m sure that all of us were taught that to kill is beyond sinful, yet our troops (who mostly joined the military to be able to make money, despite the horrific job), did their duty and may come back successful, but with broken spirits.
Our president asked his people to support him in an effort to protect democracy and ourselves, yet the very reasons he came up with to start a war may backfire.
President Bush asked us to search for and destroy weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, however, the few that we have found (or claimed to have found) were never used during the war. Although this is a good thing, where does this leave our cause for war? I’m certain that many of us prayed to find these weapons to support our president, yet at the same time fervently wished that the weapons never be used at all.
And what about our democracy the rights that our founding fathers put quill to paper in such documents like the Bill of Rights? Is our media doing a right thing if they are required to report to the government with their information before airing it on television? Although many news stations like Fox and CNN strive to appease their audience with the truth, they are being watered down because America seems to not want the truth.
So how can the media be watchdogs if their corporate owners force them to feed the audience images and facts just for the ratings? How can we see what is really going on if all the news outlets are owned by one mother hen? (Did you wonder why so much of the news we watch is all the same? Maybe it’s because the stations are the same!)
Just like the media, the people of America are also being denied free speech. The Dixie Chicks were publicly lashed only because one was brave enough to voice her feelings. One of the winners in the Academy Awards was booed for again saying what he felt.
I guess the most important catch-22 of America then is the fact that we claim to be a free country, although we never seem to practice it. Let democracy live by letting everyone speak without reprimand; be patriotic to yourself and do what’s best for the country, and not what the president seems to think is best for us.
Jaclyn Roco, a senior journalism major, is editor in chief of the Campus Times. She can be reached by e-mail at rocojax@yahoo.com.
