College Townies: How Do You Honour A Place As You Breeze By?
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Re: College Townies: How Do You Honour A Place As You Breeze By?
#2Always treat people as people. If you're treating someone as a "means to an end" then you're not treating them humanely. That's exactly the way to win enemies and violent tendencies. It goes the same with towns and cities in aggregate.
Know that I say this as someone who doesn't feel very welcome where I live currently. The many aggressive behaviors I experience daily have made me resent this place. So I look for ways and places to appreciate it here. I'm still looking to leave. But I'm also embracing my existence here.
Re: College Townies: How Do You Honour A Place As You Breeze By?
#3This hits home. I am also a faculty kid. You grow up thinking the university is awesome. And it is. You get involved in the university when you are older and find that the students for the most part treat the city and its residents like crap. The word townie is thrown around in a derogatory manner towards the locals. You are left thinking why the heck should I support this university when the alumni base has such a bad view of the people that actually live in the city. I realize that not everyone at the university is like that but its enough that it seems like a real cultural problem.
Re: College Townies: How Do You Honour A Place As You Breeze By?
#4Is this more common in the US? Because in my country it seems to be the absolute opposite. The permanent residents (or the locals as we call them) are extremely apathetic towards the students. Whereas the students (me included) absolutely fell in love with the place and find it hard to leave.
The locals also take advantage of the relative wealthiness of the students (higher education is not cheap) and you will find them skirting rules everywhere: autos don't run by meter, you are charged extra for cold bottles of soft drinks, restaurants and pubs are extra pricey and so are the rents - all this compared to a bigger non-university town just 5 kms away.
Re: College Townies: How Do You Honour A Place As You Breeze By?
#5What 90% of college graduates fail to consider is that many of those townies will one day be far richer than they are.
The idea of students 'looking down' at (for example) the local plumber is often ridiculous, considering a plumbers' hourly rate often exceeds that of many lawyers.
As we all know, there is a frightening, decreasing correlation between college education and financial success. At the same time there are plenty of locals who work hard and pour money into real estate.
It's a disturbing truth for most college graduates who drink the kool-aid of "education equals financial superiority". And colleges are only too happy to serve up that kool aid.
eg: I know a guy my age who owns a dozen hardware stores. He made his first million before he was 30, and he dropped out of high school. He's also one of the sharpest business people I know.
Be nice to everyone. You might learn something.
Re: College Townies: How Do You Honour A Place As You Breeze By?
#6What 90% of college graduates fail to consider is that many of those townies will one day be far richer than they are. The idea of students 'looking down' at (for example) the local plumber is often ridiculous, considering a plumbers' hourly rate often exceeds that of many lawyers. As we all know, there is a frightening, decreasing correlation between college education and financial success. At the same time there ar…
Money doesn't buy moral righteousness nor equal brilliance. Our economy has proven that time and time again.
I absolutely agree with you that people should treat people like people, though. The plumber shouldn't look down on the college student and the college student shouldn't look down on the plumber. If anything they ought to talk and learn from one another. I've learned my hardest to understand and learn on my own lessons from people that were drastically different from myself.
Re: College Townies: How Do You Honour A Place As You Breeze By?
#7Is this more common in the US? Because in my country it seems to be the absolute opposite. The permanent residents (or the locals as we call them) are extremely apathetic towards the students. Whereas the students (me included) absolutely fell in love with the place and find it hard to leave. The locals also take advantage of the relative wealthiness of the students (higher education is not cheap) and you will find t…
There are different kinds of "college towns" in the US.
Boston is a big college town because it has several of the nation's most important/prestigious institutions of higher education—but it's also a distinctive and vibrant city in its own right, with a unique history, culture, built environment. New York is similar.
But many of the state universities and land grant universities, especially in the West, put the state's largest and most important school in a small and otherwise unremarkable town. Norman, Oklahoma, has a population of 110k and the University of Oklahoma, which has enrollment of 30k. Lawrence, Kansas, has a population of 87k and the University of Kansas, which has enrollment of 28k. West Lafayette, Indiana, has a population of 29k and Purdue University, which has enrollment of 40k. Bloomington, Indiana, has a population of 84k and the main campus of Indiana University, which has enrollment of 49k.
These are all nice little towns, but they are all relatively small towns with small enconomies, and there's just a limited number of college graduates they can absorb. They usually have local political cultures strongly influenced by the college and very different than the small and rural communities that surround them.
Plus, lots of American communities can seem very generic. Many Americans towns are less than a century old, with only a few generations of traditions and history, and surrounded by similar communities with a similar size, culture, environment, and history.
Re: College Townies: How Do You Honour A Place As You Breeze By?
#8Is this more common in the US? Because in my country it seems to be the absolute opposite. The permanent residents (or the locals as we call them) are extremely apathetic towards the students. Whereas the students (me included) absolutely fell in love with the place and find it hard to leave. The locals also take advantage of the relative wealthiness of the students (higher education is not cheap) and you will find t…
Unless vendors are discriminating against customers, I don't understand which rules are being skirted in your examples. Higher demand should cause higher prices (or more vendors, but that requires prices to reach a certain amount first).
Re: College Townies: How Do You Honour A Place As You Breeze By?
#9Is this more common in the US? Because in my country it seems to be the absolute opposite. The permanent residents (or the locals as we call them) are extremely apathetic towards the students. Whereas the students (me included) absolutely fell in love with the place and find it hard to leave. The locals also take advantage of the relative wealthiness of the students (higher education is not cheap) and you will find t…
I grew up in a college town (a large state land grand university) and this isn't really how I perceived things. The complaints were more about college students littering, drinking too much, or playing loud music.
Re: College Townies: How Do You Honour A Place As You Breeze By?
#10I feel I have this problem(?) still, years after graduating college. I have lived a few places now, and held several jobs, and each time I have treated both the location and occupation with an air of impermanence. I neglect to make friends or make any long-term commitments because I know I will one day leave them behind.