Life in ‘Real World’ is uncertain
COMMENTARY
Alisha Brown

Minus an F4 tornado, a shooting at Wedgwood Baptist Church, the fiasco of Election 2000, the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, a War on Terror, a War in Iraq, an economic recession and a record unemployment rate — all things considered — I might not have had much to write home about.

Without at least a few national tragedies, college might have seemed fairly uneventful for the leaders of the class of 2003 to live through on their own. And I know CNN’s ratings would have suffered.

But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, so we’re told, unless it’s SARS or anthrax or the use of Ephedrine-containing products, caffeine, nicotine or high fructose corn syrup.

And they say we should be proud of what we’ve accomplished — which we are — but maybe it’s time for a mental break from accomplishment. From one overachiever to an entire class of like-minded students, I thought these four years were to be a mini-vacation from that allusive “Real World.”

Then popular culture goes and gives us Joe Millionaire and Fear Factor to prove that there are people who don’t actually work for a living while we type 25-page papers in the crowded library. And while an 18-year-old from Grapevine becomes an American Idol and debuts her CD at the local Wal-Mart, our former classmate Kristin Holt hosts the nationally popular show from Los Angeles as we dine in The Main.

With all due understanding, I’ve essentially just stopped listening to what my elders tell me — at least those with jobs secured already — and wait for the air to clear so we can see who’s holding this smoking gun to the media’s temples actually encouraging them to promote such fantasy lifestyles.

In my opinion, never before has a graduating class crossed the proverbial graduation stage balancing as weighty of a load as the class of 2003, but that could be because my shoulders are already wearing out from the past few semesters. Many of our classmates are aware that a $2.13-an-hour job awaits them after graduation in the service industry to sustain them as they search for a job. And many more are thankful for their photocopying skills learned through unpaid internships and term papers that will speed up their training at their first office job.

Of my closest group of friends, ranging in majors from business administration to speech communication, from Seattle to Richmond, Va., we all agree that more needs to be done to inundate the student body with either real life or real college life so that when we have a university that equates itself with at least the bare historical minimums of a college atmosphere — diversified enrollment, student protests and the occasional graduation streaker — we will feel as if the $50 in addition to the $50,000 paid in tuition will be worth the price to have our names on a brick outside the library commemorating 1999-2003, the college years.

In our remaining weeks here at TCU, it’s hard to ignore the obvious facts and the uncertainty that awaits us post-May 10, 2003, but in reality we maintain a positive attitude and steady push toward the end. In the near future, you will see the leaders of our class wade through the battles that have been left for us and take charge of what someday will be the “Real World” that we’ve worked so hard to design.

Alisha Brown is a graduating senior from Odessa. She can be reached at (a.k.brown2@tcu.edu).