As a junior at Cabrini, not once have I said to myself, “Wow, this place is awesome!” It’s always been along the lines of, “I feel like I’m in high school,” or “Why is there never anything to eat?” It’s a shame the last three years of my life have been miserable.
Okay, so miserable is a little overboard but does anyone else feel like life at Cabrini can be a thousand times better with some simple changes? There are a number of things I love about this college, but lately, when I weigh the good with the bad, the bad seems to be much more evident. I understand every school has its cons, but never did I expect to completely regret my decision to attend Cabrini.
People everywhere are different, which is why I was initially excited to come to college. A small campus within driving distance to the city, an athletic program that has flourished throughout the years, what wouldn’t there be to like? But as the years have progressed, I’ve come to realize I do not feel as if I’m attending college at all.
Instead, I feel as if I’m on lockdown after only 10 o’clock at night and I can’t get a quick bite to eat on a Sunday afternoon.
I, along with many others, feel the money used for the new welcome center could have gone towards a much more worthy project. Maybe it would have been more beneficial to add some parking spots around campus, expand the cafeteria, or maybe add an on-site market or student center? Just to name a few.
Perhaps a brand new welcome center with enough space for a bike to drive through would have been better to build a few years down the road and not before the more prominent discrepancies around campus could be taken care of.
My dad asks me what I eat every day for every meal, I mean, why shouldn’t he, he does pay five grand for a meal plan. “Well, the caf was closed by the time I woke up so I went to Jazzman’s and got a muffin,” I tell him.
“What about a drink or anything else?” he responds. My answer is that I can’t even afford anything else with the $3 meal exchange given to me for breakfast.
My question is, why is it that when I have a guest come to dinner with me, they have to pay $6.75 in the cafeteria, but the meal exchange equivalency is only $5 in Jazzman’s. If the excuse is the cafeteria food is of better quality than Jazzman’s, don’t talk to me.
I realize that Cabrini is trying to expand itself to one day become a university and I’m all for it.
However, when there is not enough space to accommodate everyone, it becomes an extremely aggravating problem. I’m aware that expansion and construction takes time and money but perhaps it would have been better to start accepting more students when there is enough room for them to sit in the cafeteria.
That said, life at Cabrini is bearable, right? Who hasn’t been irritated by a suspicious security guard or the fact that there is never any parking available on campus? It’s something I’m sure everyone at every college has had to deal with. Still, why hasn’t anyone said anything about it?
Perhaps it’s because most of the people affected by these problems escape every weekend and head home to vent to their parents, the ones who have to handle most of our finances.
So maybe home is the answer. A faculty member told me the best way to see change is to have your parents write a letter to the President or someone else in charge. This is a possible solution. But could it be that simple?
Probably not. My idea is that the entire student body, or at least those unhappy with certain aspects of life at Cabrini, join together and genuinely speak up about what they think should change in order for students to be happy and to stay here on the weekends. Hopefully, they’ll finally listen to us.
Instead of completely bashing Cabrini, I do have to extend a thank you to the faculty and staff here. The wonderful professors who teach us, the great people who serve us everyday in the cafeteria, the fantastic cleaning services provided daily and even the landscape and ground maintenance around campus are continually exceptional.
Still, I can’t back down from my view of how things should be done around here.
I know wherever I would have gone to college there would be things I would think need to change but I am not anywhere else, I’m at Cabrini College.
This is where we live, this is where we learn and I feel that in order for us to get the best of every aspect of college life we need to first and foremost be happy. Are you?
