Passion of the Student

According to Professor Mark Edmundson, college students of today (or the college students of the early 90’s, anyway) lack passion. Edmundson writes: “…students…are, nearly across the board, very, very, self-contained. On good days they display a light, appealing glow; on bad days, shuffling disgruntlement. But there's little fire, little passion to be found.” Edmundson blames our apparent lack of passion on TV, and “high consumer capitalism.” Perhaps at the time of writing, students were a little disgruntled. Those were the days of Nirvana and horrible fashion sense, after all. But the college students of today are not without passion. A lot of us have interests and hobbies, dreams and aspirations. Those that don’t just haven’t figured out what they want yet.

            I am a college student, and I consider myself to be a passionate person, although it might not seem like it. I love art, music, and learning new things, especially about history and science. I have a dream of becoming an archaeologist and studying pre-Columbian cultures. I also want to get better at playing the Bass and start a punk band. I would love to travel the world and see new places, and meet new people. I know I’m not alone. I work with a guy that loves shooting and editing film. He spends his free time writing and shooting movie scenes, then editing the sound, color, and effects. It’s a lot of fun to talk to him about movies, critiquing how they were made and the effects the directors and producers used. All of my friends have something they are passionate about, things like cooking, punk rock, Spanish, criminal justice, politics, etc. The list is endless.

            However, I do think there is a tendency in our culture to curb our enthusiasm. People that show too much passion are quickly labeled geeks and nerds. While there is such thing as too much enthusiasm, we need to be more open about who we are. Edmundson might be right when he says we are self-contained, but that doesn’t mean we are without passion.