I noticed something today while on the elliptical at Reily. And no, I’m not talking about how the machines always seem to be out of order. I realized that most Tulane students at the gym were watching Keeping Up with Kardashians instead of the TV right next to it, which was airing the latest update on the presidential campaign.
This probably isn’t coming as a shock to anyone. It wasn’t really a shock to me either, but it’s something I’ve been noticing more and more recently. It seems that Tulane students are generally very apathetic about what’s going on outside of our little Tulane bubble. And why not? Life inside the bubble is great. We spend time with our friends, go out to eat and party, and of course go to class, where we learn from some of the greatest professors in the country.
It’s easy to live in blissful ignorance of the things going on in the rest of the country. Watching the news definitely gets depressing from time to time, and it often seems like we don’t even need to pay attention, since most of these things going on don’t affect us. We can relate more to Kim and her boy drama than the Republican presidential candidates.
The thing is, these things actually do matter. The state of the economy has an impact on every single person, rich or poor, in this country. Heated controversies about birth control and abortion affect a good portion of women in college. Sooner or later, we will all graduate and have our own roles in the world. We are the generation of people who will soon be leading the country and making new policies; these a re the things that will go down in the history textbooks – possibly even at Tulane – in the years to come. It’s our duty now to stay well-informed of the world around us. As such a civic-minded university with an emphasis on service-learning and community service, it only makes sense that we are engaged and updated with what’s going on in the rest of the world, too. I want to encourage all HerCampus readers to do just that. Check the news every morning, register to vote come November (and actually go do it), and if nothing else, look over at the other TV at Reily.