In college, top stresses for most students should include getting work done for classes, doing well on exams, attaining good grades and paving the way towards a successful future.
This past week, however, these have all been placed on the backburner for most students at the College (with the exception of graduating seniors), to make way for the overly stressful process of housing.
The decisions surrounding housing have serious implications for how a student may or may not enjoy the following school year.
There is no reason we, as students at the College, should be faced with such an enormity of worries and fears about where we will end up living next year.
That is the last thing we should be worrying about.
However, when the list was posted last Thursday, students flocked to the posting sites both on campus and online. Frantically and nervously, they looked up their names, hoping to get a really good number.
Some were delighted with low numbers, others were disappointed with mediocre numbers and the really unlucky ones entered a momentary state of disbelief, before most likely shedding a few tears.
Worries instantly multiplied. 'Where will I live?' 'What numbers do my friends have?' 'Am I going to make the second cut, or be thrown on the street by my own school?'
For those of us unlucky enough to not make the first cut, today is the fateful day which will determine whether we make the second cut. If we do, then wonderful!
But if we don't, what will we do?
Some of us don't have cars, some do but are afraid of driving the long distance from home, some don't have others to live off-campus with because everyone else seems to have made the cut and some are concerned for their safety living in some of the rougher neighborhoods that exist minutes from the College.
As deserving students, we should all have the opportunity to live on campus if we so desire.
However, we simply cannot. It is extremely unfair, though, that the decision of who gets housing and who does not is based on the luck of the draw.
If every student on this campus cannot be guaranteed a housing spot, then students should earn their spots.
The College needs to recognize and show some appreciation for those of us who utilize our rooms for doing work and being the good students that we are.
At many other colleges, GPAs and activities play a role in who gets housing and who does not. The College needs to catch on and do this as well.
As a good student with a high GPA, highly involved on campus as an editor of The Signal and a tutor at the Academic Enhancement and Tutoring Center, the College should theoretically want me on campus more than the next guy who smokes pot every night and is failing three of his four classes.
However, for the second year in a row, I received a horrible number.
The fate of my residency next year now rides on whether or not I will make the second cutoff, to be posted today.
Until then, I'll try to concentrate on my studies and hope for the best in this unjust system.
