The University of Colorado Boulder held commencement exercises on Saturday, sending hundreds of graduating students out to face life’s challenges.
For those who snicker, thinking the students will get a shock upon leaving their “ivory tower” world, guess again. That concept disappeared a long time ago thanks to endless news cycles, social media overload, and the reality of the world’s difficulties creeping onto campuses.
Problems such as mass shootings on campuses, and increased sexual assaults at colleges and universities nationwide showed that campuses were not a protective bubble. Increased education about what constitutes sexual assault, and which behaviors are acceptable and which ones aren’t, may slowly improve the atmosphere for the latter.
Here’s the point: It’s not that the students are exiting from a precious cocoon of learning and nurturing into the real world. It’s that they’re simply traveling from one part of the real world to another.
Today’s college students are deeply affected by events outside of their campuses. Consider what else they’ve had to contemplate the past four years:
• They faced the uncertainty of finding summer employment, thanks to up-and-down economic cycles lingering from the Great Recession of 2008.
• The student debt crisis has become a hot topic as rising education costs further squeeze the middle class. Never before have so many graduates been saddled with so much debt, which they might never be able to eliminate.
• On top of that, the worth of a college degree keeps shrinking as fast-moving technology leaves behind those who lack the skills to compete for well-paying jobs. They might never achieve the American Dream, stuck on a treadmill of ongoing debt, unable to get ahead.
• Social media is all-consuming, constantly slicing and dicing people’s attention spans and ability to develop solid perspectives around important issues. People can barely catch their breath these days, what with the endless onslaught of messaging.
• The unhelpful trend that tried to prevent any student from ever being offended by anything someone else said poorly serves the graduates. Instead, the opposite should have been encouraged: Open debate that exposes participants to many sides of an issue and teaches them to thoroughly examine a situation before passing judgment.
Those who assume they have a God-given right to never be offended are about to get a rude awakening out in the real world.
Outside events have affected college students from every era, further diluting the ivory tower misconception that all is safe away from the outside world.
Good, I say. Let life teach alongside faculty, taking its rightful place in our community of learning and offering its many powerful and long-lasting lessons.
I believe the best today’s college graduates can do is to go out and make use of what they’ve learned and experienced in their lives, their communities and in a world that is spinning and changing right along with them.
We hope that America’s obsession with money and power will not dampen their desire to pursue their passions, and that their educational experiences fostered their willingness to take risks.
Let’s hope that the sense of community they experienced in college won’t be replaced by an overzealous desire to excel on the job — to the detriment of family and self.
Jim Martin is a former University of Colorado regent.
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