Why I'm Leaving Syracuse

 

       So recently I've been having a lot of problems with financial aid (as always) and this time, it just seemed like there was no coming back from it. A lot was being expected of me that I couldn't possibly pay and although it ended up working out and I was given the aid I need to stay here, it gave me some insight into Syracuse and made me realize that this might not be the right place for me right now. Throughout the whole hassle of Syracuse telling me that I needed to pay them thousands and thousands of dollars before I could register for any classes, otherwise leave my on-campus apartment and go home, I started thinking about where I want to be in my life right now and Syracuse just isn't it. I realized that I was no longer fighting to be here and once I realized that, it was pretty obvious that I just don't want to be here as much as I used to. I found myself hoping that I'd end up somewhere else and that's basically what made me decide to leave.

     Before, it was worth working all the time and being completely broke because this was exactly what I wanted and I loved it. Now, it's just a lot of work and for something that I really could live without. I love Syracuse to death and I was excited to finally be in Newhouse but I was using Newhouse to keep me here. I was hoping that once I was in Newhouse that everything would be better and I'd be happier here and it just didn't happen like that. Everything seemed to be going even better than usual plus I found a steady job that's perfect for me and even with all that, I still didn't feel like this is where I need to be.

     I've invested a lot of time and effort and money into being here, so it's hard to just leave after everything I've done to be here, but I also am not going to spend any more time or money being somewhere I don't absolutely love being. If something isn't making me happy then I'm not going to continue doing it. I refuse to spend two and a half years working my ass off to be able to barely afford a college that I don't want to be at when I could be working my ass of somewhere that's perfect for me.

     I thought about it a lot and I talked it over with several different people, and most of them seem to agree that I don't seem to be interested in being here like I used to be. I don't think it's a bad thing, I just think I've done everything I can here and now it's time to move on. It sucks that it didn't work out but realistically, I don't even like the east coast. I hate the cold, I don't like snow, I have no desire anymore to live in New York, and paying for air fare back and forth might as well kill me. That used to all be trivial and I didn't care because I loved being here more than anything but now it makes a huge difference. I still love Syracuse, I just don't want to be here enough for it to be worth it. There isn't enough making me happy to keep me here. I think I could be a hundred times happier and more satisfied somewhere else so that's what I plan to do.

Sexual Assault On College Campuses

     I used to not have a problem with Greek life, I actually at one point considered joining a sorority. Up until recently, my personal issues with Greek life were really just my opinion and not anything major that I thought was actually negatively affecting people on a large scale. There's been a lot of attention brought to the UVA incident that Rolling Stone published in which a girl named Jackie came forward with the account of how she was gang raped at a frat party. It's been found that there are some possible discrepancies with her story and Rolling Stone apologized for not fact-checking or interviewing any of the men accused.

     While I agree that Rolling Stone should've probably looked into the facts more, their apology completely discredited Jackie and the seriousness of what happened to her. Although the details may not be completely true, she still was definitely sexually assaulted and interviewing the rapists in any case is likely to cause them to target or torment the victim for coming forward. Also, it's not likely that anyone who is called for their account of a rape they committed would actually admit to what they did.

     Jackie's roommate told Huffington Post that at the time Jackie says she was sexually assaulted, she was "distraught" and even left school early and rescheduled all of her exams to be taken later, meanwhile it is being completely denied that anybody ever hurt her. While she may not have been completely truthful about who did it, only a small percentage (although it is not positively known exactly what it is) of rape accusations are false. Rape victims are 3 times more likely to be depressed and 6 times more likely to have PTSD so it's impossible to know what kind of damage has been caused by the sexual assault Jackie experienced, whether or not it is the story she's telling. It also doesn't change the fact that sexual assault is a huge problem on college campuses and in Greek life. People seem to be looking for reasons to discredit her story and bring attention away from sexual assault issues.

     This whole story has brought tons of attention to the issue of sexual assault, and rightfully so. At UVA, students who have admitted to sexual assault have only been suspended for a year or two, while anyone who has cheated has been expelled immediately. Of course academic integrity is important, but why is it more important to punish cheating students than it is to punish rapists? So many colleges are sending the message to students that cheating is wrong but sexual assault is just fine.

     The Fraternity and Sorority Political Action Committee (FSPAC), the National Panhellenic Conference (NPC), and the North-American Interfraternity Conference (NIC) released a statement saying that all Greek life at UVA should be reinstated and that the Rolling Stone article and accusations by Jackie have undermined "true victims" from stepping forward, because Jackie is not considered to be a real victim simply because the facts of her case have not been fully discovered yet. Again, more victim blaming is taking place.

     This pretty much just highlights the fact that people tend to just look the other way when it comes to sexual assault accusations and not only at UVA. Even at Syracuse, I personally know girls who have been drugged at frat parties or the houses of sports teams. Friends of mine in sororities have told me that they've been warned by the person who arranges their social events with frats to not take their drinks because they'll probably have drugs in them. Yet again, boys are being excused for drugging and possibly attempting to rape girls while girls are being warned of it and blamed if they accept a drink. How in the hell are we still blaming victims for what happens to them when the guys drugging and raping girls should be the ones blamed for what's happening?

     There are so many instances of fraternities drugging their drinks that are widely known on campus, yet nobody cares to do anything about it. What I don't understand is why people, in sororities or not, are choosing to go to parties at houses where they know the boys are going to attempt to drug and sexually assault them. We shouldn't be continuing to allow them to do this and supporting it by showing up to their houses and acting like what they're doing isn't disgustingly wrong. It makes no sense that people are turning the other cheek and pretending like it's not a big deal. None of these people are being held responsible for anything they do or even being acknowledged for the things they're doing wrong.

     It's so clear that all of this is happening, yet the university won't even acknowledge it and neither will the FSPAC, NPC, or NIC. Everything seems to just be brushed under the rug whether it's drugging drinks, sexual assault, or hazing even though everyone on campus knows it's happening. People are being hurt mentally, sexually, and physically and nobody even cares in the slightest bit. It's really sad to know that the university I love and call my home would probably do nothing to help me if I were ever sexually assaulted. It's hard to feel safe on a campus where some of the frats and sports teams are drugging girls at parties and are not even being looked at for what they're doing. It's unfair that my school won't even protect me or any of its students who could be hurt or assaulted, yet is protecting the ones who are attempting to drug or rape.

     People seem to forget that sex is rape if one party doesn't consent. If a girl is drunk or drugged and has sex, she CANNOT consent. It IS rape. Whether it's attempted or actually happens, it needs to be acknowledged by students, the university, and the police. People need to start being held responsible for their wrongdoings and people need to start caring that the people we associate with and are surrounded by are, in fact, doing things that are wrong.

My GPA Does Not Define Me

     One problem with our society is that we determine a persons worth by their level of education and what each of us thinks is a quality education. Peoples characters are judged based on their GPA which is supposed to be a reflection of their work ethic and how smart they are but it really isn't. College kids complain about how tests aren't a good way to evaluate what they've learned or how much they've actually absorbed and been able to use from a class, yet they continue to judge each other based off them. We all complain about how society places our worth next to our GPA or how prestigious our college is, yet we all judge the people who go to schools we think are below ours and we judge people who's GPA's are lower than ours. We all complain about society yet we are one of the main contributing sources.

     None of us want to be judged solely off of our grades or how well we can do math problems or regurgitate random facts, yet we think it's a good way to judge other people. No one who goes to a community college is below anyone who goes to a big university and we can't possibly know what valuable things people are learning from schools we don't go to. Some of the most uninformed, close minded people I've met go to high ranking colleges along with some of the most open and intelligent people I've met. At the same time, some of the most innovative, open minded people I know go to community colleges or lesser known schools. It's impossible to know a person or how intelligent they actually are just from looking at their school and their grades.

     Most of the time, going to a big, fancy school actually doesn't say anything about you. Saying I go to Syracuse University says that I tolerate cold weather and I probably like the color orange. It doesn't tell you that I'm creative and open and passionate. It doesn't tell you all the work I put in to get here and the work I put in to be able to stay here. I could tell you my GPA tends to float around a 3.5 and that I've taken anthropology and that I don't do well in math classes but that doesn't tell you anything I've learned in my three semesters here. It tells you I'm probably not very good with numbers and that I know a thing or two about culture. That's not much to go off. You could never possibly know how good I am at photography or how smart I actually am when applying things to the real world if all you're looking at is my GPA or my test scores.

     Test grades can't tell you what I learned from a class, they can only tell how much fact I retained. They don't tell you what I learned about the world or myself or how that course connected with other subjects or parts of my life, which are much more valuable than how well I can memorize names and numbers. You don't get credit for understanding concepts or ideas if you don't get the facts perfectly right and you don't get credit for understanding a process or reasoning if you don't do the calculations perfectly every single time. You don't receive any recognition for the things you understand beyond the facts or actually applying things you've learned to your life. Meanwhile, you get punished for not being able to memorize specific data. Instead of getting the chance to actually demonstrate what you took away from a class and the value of what you learned, you get judged based on how many bubbles you filled in correctly. Then, instead of getting a chance to show your skills and how valuable you can be, you become the number that is your GPA.