Complaints are the standard conversation starter at NSU: the food here is terrible, tuition costs too much, classes are too hard, there’s no school spirit, Blackboard never works correctly, I had to stay up until 3 a.m. to finish all my homework and this professor is terrible.
I’ve made these complaints, and I’ve used them as a way to bond with my fellow students. They’re easy to remember, because it’s often much easier to focus on the bad things in our lives than the good things. We’ve created a campus culture that bonds over negativity. Our first instinct, when trying to connect with someone, is to talk about how hard the class is, or how tired we are, or how busy we are, or how hungry we are. But I think we need to find more positive common ground.
There are so many schools out there, but we all came to NSU. We compared the pros and cons of other universities and other life paths, and we still came to NSU. And yet, some students don’t act like it was their choice at all. They act like someone is forcing them to attend classes, forcing them to learn, forcing them to pay tuition. Every inconvenience they experience in the name of education becomes the next day’s talking point.
Which begs the question, why are we here? If college didn’t challenge us, it wouldn’t be worth our time or money. If we didn’t find the classes difficult, we wouldn’t be learning anything. If we really have issues with the way NSU functions, there are better ways to address them than by complaining. For example, writing an opinion for The Current or contacting university personnel who have the ability to make changes. And if our opinions of NSU aren’t exactly as negative as we’ve led everyone around us to believe, then maybe the way we talk about our university should start reflecting that.
My years at NSU have been great, no matter how many times I’ve complained. I’ve disliked some classes, but I’ve loved others. I’ve worked hard, but I’ve never had to pull an all-nighter to cram for a last-minute test. Balancing school and work has been difficult sometimes, but I’ve grown a lot and become much better at managing my time.
It’s easy to be critical, especially when our fellow students seem to connect so well with it, but there are positive things to connect over. We just aren’t thinking about them.
Our common ground is the school, not the negativity. There are so many people who would love to be able to attend this university, and we get to. NSU isn’t perfect, but we chose it. Maybe the food isn’t as good as we expected it to be, and we work harder and party less than we thought we would, but if the cons really did outweigh the pros, we probably wouldn’t still be here.
