The college experience has greatly shifted in the past thirty to forty years. The necessity of having a degree in order to get a “good” job has grown exponentially. Rather than higher education, the university experience is now an essentially mandatory component of one’s education just like high school. Virtually everyone is encouraged to attend. This has made for more specialization.  A wide-ranging education that is supposed to expose the student to as many things as possible is now out of the norm, and people pigeon-hole themselves into one subject. Students at universities take one science class, one English class, one history course, etc. just to fulfill a general education requirement, not to learn. The biggest problem of all, however, is that it is seen as a waste of time to learn as much as possible. 

The study of humanities is seen as a waste of time because it isn’t “practical.” Degrees in business, engineering and medicine, while valuable and necessary, are seen as useful and productive while degrees in history, English and art are seen as useless and impractical. There is no problem in pursuing any of these degrees, the problem is the way the college experience works now, in that students are only exposed to their own majors. College has been bastardized away from the idea of higher education and exposure to a wide range of subjects to simply a transactional process where you do some work in exchange for a degree. People aren’t coming to college anymore to learn, they are coming to get their degree.  

Intellectualism has been de-emphasized as a virtue because people aren’t coming here to learn.  In order to justify the idea of a “useful” or “practical” degree, intellectualism as a whole has been deemed impractical and a waste of time, much like the degrees and majors listed before.  Intellectualism today is seen as pretentious and highbrow, and has been slowly phased out of the values of the collegiate experience. Humanities have been defunded year after year, the programs shrinking and professors put out of jobs. In an increasingly, purely transactional society, the value of humanities has been lost.

People tend not to realize the value of many of the translatable skills like close reading, interpretation, writing, research, etc., that one can learn in degrees like English, History, etc. These are things you can learn on your own, but getting a variety of perspectives you may otherwise be unable to find that you can have access to in college is an invaluable experience. Getting rid of this kind of education in favor of alleged “more useful” programs is a travesty. There is a reason attention span has shortened, reading levels lowered and writing skills have worsened. It’s because of a de-emphasis on these subjects because they aren’t seen as ‘practical’.

The college experience has greatly shifted in the past thirty to forty years. The necessity of having a degree in order to get a “good” job has grown exponentially. Rather than higher education, the university experience is now an essentially mandatory component of one’s education just like high school. Virtually everyone is encouraged to attend. This has made for more specialization.  A wide-ranging education that is supposed to expose the student to as many things as possible is now out of the norm, and people pigeon-hole themselves into one subject. Students at universities take one science class, one English class, one history course, etc. just to fulfill a general education requirement, not to learn. The biggest problem of all, however, is that it is seen as a waste of time to learn as much as possible. 

The study of humanities is seen as a waste of time because it isn’t “practical.” Degrees in business, engineering and medicine, while valuable and necessary, are seen as useful and productive while degrees in history, English and art are seen as useless and impractical. There is no problem in pursuing any of these degrees, the problem is the way the college experience works now, in that students are only exposed to their own majors. College has been bastardized away from the idea of higher education and exposure to a wide range of subjects to simply a transactional process where you do some work in exchange for a degree. People aren’t coming to college anymore to learn, they are coming to get their degree.  

Intellectualism has been de-emphasized as a virtue because people aren’t coming here to learn.  In order to justify the idea of a “useful” or “practical” degree, intellectualism as a whole has been deemed impractical and a waste of time, much like the degrees and majors listed before.  Intellectualism today is seen as pretentious and highbrow, and has been slowly phased out of the values of the collegiate experience. Humanities have been defunded year after year, the programs shrinking and professors put out of jobs. In an increasingly, purely transactional society, the value of humanities has been lost.

People tend not to realize the value of many of the translatable skills like close reading, interpretation, writing, research, etc., that one can learn in degrees like English, History, etc. These are things you can learn on your own, but getting a variety of perspectives you may otherwise be unable to find that you can have access to in college is an invaluable experience. Getting rid of this kind of education in favor of alleged “more useful” programs is a travesty. There is a reason attention span has shortened, reading levels lowered and writing skills have worsened. It’s because of a de-emphasis on these subjects because they aren’t seen as ‘practical’.

This year, the Oxford dictionary word of the year is, “Brain rot.” The social media epidemic has finally achieved its total victory in the American consciousness. Not in that it has pervaded every aspect of society- though it has- not in that the use of social media has gotten out of control, but that all of these problems are acknowledged as such. “Doom scrolling” and “Brain rotting” have become deeply ingrained within the English lexicon. Despite this fact, everyone still engages in this kind of behavior.

I am occasionally guilty of this, though when I recognize it, I try to stop and do something a little more productive. TikTok, at one point or another, was a real social media app. Now it is nothing more than AI accounts posting 10 second clips of sitcoms, people screaming about unnecessary celebrity drama and Lebron James edits. 

Nowadays, spending time on an app like TikTok is spending your time interacting with nothing. It is a pure waste of time and absolutely nothing else. It’s one thing when someone scrolls while eating a meal (even though reading a book or watching an actual YouTube video would be better). It’s another thing entirely when one spends hours upon hours scrolling through nothing. Instagram Reels, TikTok and YouTube Shorts add nothing to your life. It is simply another extension, at this point, of the AI culture, which has totally pervaded our lives today.

There is a likely possibility that only a small fraction of what one is even interacting with on the internet is even a real person.  It is far more likely nowadays that we are interacting with some kind of computer. It is designed to pump out random content which has made its way into our own personalized, filtered algorithms that pump out endless content for us to consume. Another large portion of it is just trying to sell us random crap we don’t need or want. 

Why are we wasting our lives, wasting our youths scrolling and looking at nothing? There has never in history been a bigger waste of time than scrolling on the internet. The biggest tragedy of all is that we acknowledge this fact- only ironically.  Someone will say “I’ve been brainrotting all day” or “I just doom scrolled for two hours instead of doing my homework,” and be perfectly fine with it. It is so clear that at this point anything can be dangled in front of our faces and as long as attractive people promote it, we’ll band over backwards to integrate it into our lives. 

There are few tragedies in the world more sad than seeing someone waste their potential and their brain power doing stupid, useless things that give them absolutely nothing in return. No knowledge is gained from it, no improvement to their lives is made. They are in stasis. They have achieved nothing.

Joseph Robinette Biden has dedicated his life to serving the United States and is not being respected as what he is. He is the ultimate public servant.  While I am not a fan of people who cling to political power for decades at a time, it is hard not to appreciate someone who is tantamount to what we would want out of a politician.  The rhetoric surrounding his presidency has been failure and embarrassment.  

I never felt embarrassed to have Joe Biden representing my country.  He put us back in the Paris Climate Accords.  He introduced mask mandates to finally put into place a policy trying to limit the spread of COVID-19.  He signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which also allowed for the Medicare program to barter with pharmaceutical companies in hopes of lowering the cost.  He was a pro-union President.  He passed laws supporting American companies rather than overreliance on overseas manufacturing.  He invested in infrastructure.  Biden worked to invest in the American public and build back what had been broken in the four years prior. 

One of the biggest things that bothers me with politics in the US today is its rhetoric.  The way politicians go about getting their message across, on both sides of the aisle, does more to divide our country and split it at the seams. What used to be civil disagreement on how we achieve our end goal has turned into a culture war on the end goal. Making America great again does not mean calling all immigrants “criminals” and claiming they are poisoning the blood of our country.  It does not involve calling veterans who got captured in war “losers”.  It does not include calling people who disagree with Trump “evil people who want to ruin the country”.  

Biden, for his entire political career, has done nothing but fight for all Americans, not just those who agree with him.  He’s been wrong before – on race, on gender equality, but has grown over the years to what I and many other Americans feel are the right positions.  He convinced Barack Obama to campaign in support of the right to gay marriage in 2008 while campaigning as his Vice-Presidential candidate.  Even after the recent loss Vice President Kamala Harris suffered in the 2024 election, Biden still is trying to unite America instead of dividing it.  While his political rival boasts about “owning the libs” and “taking America back,” Biden only expresses love for his country. 

 “You can’t only love your country when you win,” Biden said, according to CNN.  

He sure hasn’t been perfect.  He wasn’t my first choice.  But he certainly turned out to be the man of the moment and stepped up to the plate when we needed him.  And for that, I have endless thanks for Biden, and he should be remembered as a great President.

In movies like “2001: A Space Odyssey,” artificial intelligence like HAL 9000 rise up and attempt (and in the case of movies like “The Terminator,” succeed) to kill humans. The potential dangers that arise with artificial intelligence have been on people’s minds since they were first thought of as a theoretical idea. Why then, when presented with AI like ChatGPT, OpenAI and even Siri, are we not even batting an eye, and celebrating the introduction of these AI models into everyday life? The aspect of humanity that makes us truly special is not the ability to walk upright, our opposable thumbs or even our ability to speak. What makes a human, human, is our ability to think critically, and come up with complex ideas and thoughts that the rest of the animal kingdom cannot. Why are we delegating aspects of what makes us special to the machine? 

As a human being, I feel like my thoughts and ideas are important. More than this, I feel that my ideas are my own. If I were to ask a machine to write a paper for me around my prompt or even to edit and format my work, it would immediately cease to be my own. If I were to have an assignment where I am supposed to give my perspective or thoughts, or even just brainstorm a couple of ideas, I am giving up a piece of humanity by delegating this task to the machine. By letting the machine come up with ideas for me, write for me and edit my work for me, I’m not producing anything- the machine is. At this point, the University of Maine might as well be putting ChatGPT on people’s diplomas instead of their own names. I would personally rather deal with the consequences of getting a question wrong or getting a few points off on an essay than totally delegate what makes me a unique individual with complex and meaningful ideas to a machine and pass them off as my own. 

It sounds like a joke and it sounds silly to say, but this is exactly how the machines take over in movies like “2001” or “The Terminator.” First, we start by letting them do little tasks for us, then we give over some of our decision-making to them and eventually, we have AI terminators hunting us down. We end up living in bunkers underground, eating rats and drinking sewer water. Not to say this is necessarily within the actual realm of possibility (though it could be), but this is just an extreme example of the kind of dangerous path we’re going down by outsourcing what makes us special and unique to a machine that can never truly replicate our humanity. This is not a call to action, it’s a call to attention that we as a society need to be more careful of what we do with technology and more aware of what we lose when we don’t take responsibility and agency over our own minds.

As someone who bikes around campus on a day-to-day basis, I have a mixed bag in terms of experiences. While the campus is quiet, I can’t honestly say I have no complaints. The sidewalk situation is less than desirable on some spots of campus, but I can generally look past that. While the campus is busy, especially when people are walking to classes and people are driving up and down Long Road, it’s a nightmare. People cross the street without looking, and cars don’t really know what to do. It is a nightmare! 

One change could be made to make campus not only more biker-friendly, but also more pedestrian-friendly. I’d like to see Long Road blocked off for most of the day. Commuters would still be able to get onto campus, they just wouldn’t be able to drive up and down Long Road all day. The only spot that would be inaccessible for cars would be the Knox Hall lot. This could be remedied however, by connecting the Knox lot to the Stewart Quad lots.

Cars going through the middle of campus create not just a lot of traffic, but also pose a significant amount of danger. 

Last year, someone was hit by a car on Long Road, luckily only suffering minor injuries. This would not only increase the safety for pedestrians, but also for bikers. Whenever I bike up and down Long Road, I have to worry about if someone from the sidewalk is going to walk out without looking, or if a car is going to give me enough space. I always have to worry about the cars turning onto Long Road hitting me. Blocking off the road for most of the day would largely eliminate these problems because it would open up the road for better use by bikers, and people walking and trying to cross the road won’t have to worry as much about their surroundings.

You could argue that commuters would have a difficult time getting on campus, but all commuter lots are on the periphery and would still be accessible even without Long Road. The other roads on campus would still connect one side of campus to the other if it’s absolutely necessary to drive through campus. 

The situation on much of campus is not really one we can control. We obviously cannot start policing the sidewalks everywhere on campus, making sure bikers have space to move. But areas like Long Road can be adapted to make it not just safer for bikers, but for everyone. Over time, small changes like this would end up transforming what our campus looks like. We should be transitioning, like many other places in the world, to a much more biker and pedestrian-friendly campus. The more we allow cars to dominate the infrastructure around us, the less space we have to actually exist in the places around us.

A meal plan here at the University of Maine can put a strain on the pockets of students and families.  The cheapest meal plan available is “The 25 Plan” which offers students the ability to swipe into a dining hall 25 times in a semester for the price of $310.  Plans go up in price from there, including more swipes and options for meal plan dollars attached to the swipes. Students are paying a lot for the privilege of eating at our dining halls. The consensus that most meal plan holders, including myself, seem to have come to is that the quality of food available is more often than not unsatisfactory.  Sodexo, the international corporation to which UMaine delegated the responsibility of dining services on campus, does not have enough interest in the quality of food that it puts out on a daily basis as much as it does its profits.  

The total revenue that Sodexo pulled in during the first half of 2024, was roughly 12,101,000,000 euros (a figure equal to 13,412,748,400 USD), this is a number up 4.5% from the previous year.  In North America, the organic growth was listed as 10%. These numbers indicate business is booming for the massive multinational corporation. As the dollars are being raked in, the quality of food remains unsatisfactory. Anecdotally, just this past week one of the main-line options at Hilltop were pork ribs.  Unfortunately, about half were totally uncooked, with uncooked lumps of fat present in many.  On a more regular basis, hamburgers will commonly have hard bits of plastic or parchment paper present within .  The rest of the food available, usually on the main line or the pizza option, are hastily prepared, making for a negative experience all around. In the effort of fairness, there are a few good options. Stir fry is usually a safe bet, since it’s prepared and made to order. The fries can be great with the seasoned salt, and the fried chicken sandwiches are almost always adequate.  For the most part however, these options are unhealthy. The healthy options available are either on the main line or are just a make-your-own salad. This leaves the more health-conscious students with few options.  More often than not, the main line option consists of some variation of grilled chicken or rice.  I personally have never gotten chicken from the main line that has been properly cooked.  Either it’s as hard as a hockey puck and is far too dry, or pink and totally uncooked.  The rice, to my memory, has never been cooked right.

This is, to a point, to be expected.  It would be unrealistic for us to expect food to be perfect when it sits out under a heat lamp for 15 to 30 minutes. What I am asking for, is the food quality that I feel I’m paying for.  This is an opinion most UMaine students would agree with.  We are paying too much money for a subpar product.  It’s very clear that profit is valued more than delivering what students need.  The dining halls are far too understaffed, even from an outsider’s perspective it’s clear how prevalent the issue is for UMaine dining.  The utensils are always running low, the dish return is always a nightmare and tables are rarely cleaned. There may simply be too few people to take care of the monumental task that is preparing food for the thousands of people who eat at Hilltop or York dining halls.  

It doesn’t feel like I am really asking for all that much.  It wouldn’t take a lot to move from the realm of “inadequate” to “mediocre,” and all we are asking for is some meaningful change.  Perhaps they should pay the current workers more, perhaps Sodexo should spend some of its revenue on better quality ingredients or appliances, and perhaps hire just a few more employees.