Students lack personal responsibility

While it’s true that I enjoy most aspects of this community, there is one practice that I simply abhor: the tradition of stealing Ts.

Now, before angry alumni start sending me hate mail, give me a moment to defend my position. T-theft, by definition, is vandalism, and it’s defacement of university property.

Tech went to great expense and effort to decorate our campus with these beautiful building markers to aid navigation and improve our professional image.

But packs of students have gone around scraping the Ts off, so many of these brand-new signs now look ugly and unkempt.

As a result, it detracts from the overall cleanliness and respectability that is supposed to create a positive impression on our visitors.

And consider the costs to the Institute. Sure, the stick-on letters are much cheaper to purchase and much easier to replace than the older letters that were drilled into the buildings’ outer walls. However, they’re also easier to steal, and with enough Ts missing, the costs add up. Money is taken from other necessary campus improvements because students just won’t demonstrate a little respect.

Which brings me to the crux of my editorial: I will never understand students who intentionally do stupid things.

I consider myself to be someone who tries relentlessly to understand another person’s point of view before I express my own opinion. I try to put myself in the minds of my fellow classmates and students to understand their motivations, strengths and attitudes toward the world.

With most students, I can achieve this with some degree of success, but I utterly fail when it comes to students who act stupid and purposefully destructive: they’re completely beyond my comprehension.

They steal Ts. They break off the wooden gates of the parking garages. They smash pots and shatter doors. They carve engravings into desks.

They tear down the bulletin board strips mounted in the hallways. They toss cigarette butts onto the ground. They stick chewed gum under tables.

Students are even worse when they’re extremely drunk.

Last year, I walked in on my roommate and three of his friends who had drunken themselves into a frenzy in some sort of perverted St. Patrick’s Day celebration, and they were tossing empty beer bottles out of the half-open living room window.

Needless to say, one of them bounced off the furniture and collided with the window, which shattered all over the floor.

Yes, it was an accident, but it never would have happened if they hadn’t been acting recklessly in the first place. Even if the window hadn’t broken, someone in the courtyard below could have been seriously injured by a flying bottle.

And when they’re not smashing furniture, they’re insulting others.

I have personally witnessed students in an alcoholic stupor making caustic remarks that are overtly sexist, racial or homophobic, and they are not the slightest bit amusing.

I find these conversations bigoted and demeaning, demonstrating a clear lack of intelligence, maturity and self-control.

Why, I want to ask them, would you do this to yourself? Why would you drink to excess? Why would you allow your own inhibitions to be so low that you find yourself destroying property and disrespecting your classmates? What motivates you to be so callous and cruel?

I have nothing against alcohol, but all things in moderation, man. Where is your sense of dignity and self-respect?

I’m rarely one to file a complaint without proposing a solution, but in this case, I’m at a loss. This is a strictly personal issue. I cannot influence whether or not students have self-respect and a sense of gratitude toward others.

I cannot raise maturity levels. I cannot sit next to every sign 24 hours a day fending off every lunatic with a paint scraper.

What I can do is encourage people to stop and consider the consequences of their actions.

I can persuade them not to take any aspect of their college experience for granted and to express thanks by leaving campus property intact. I can even suggest to Facilities drill clear plastic coverings over each marker or to the GTPD that we need more nighttime drive-bys.

But so long as students continue to disregard themselves, others and their Institute, these actions will only be so effective.

Now, despite all that I’ve said, I do believe in the inherent kindness of the students here.

Most of them are intelligent, wonderful people who would never hurt a fly. They represent a huge cultural and philosophical diversity that I brag about to my friends and family all over the country. I really do enjoy being a member of this community and wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Unfortunately, there are a few rotten eggs that give the entire Institute a bad image.

I hope that the majority of us that do respect ourselves and our environment will not be disheartened by the actions of a few vandals, and I hope that we will be willing to reach out to our friends if we ever see them start to go down that road.