4
Tuesday, May 11, 1976
University Daily Kansas
KANSAN Comment
Opinions on this page reflect only the view of the writer.
The four-year itch
They actually did it.
B believe it or not, the Class of '76 is going to graduate. That is why this editorial page has, for the last week or so, featured articles by seniors about good o! KU, memories and the horrible job situation.
They've got a right to talk about their
difficulties before they go off into the "real world."
IT IS ONLY right. This is the end of their fleeting moment of glory. Now they have to start all over at the bottom again: as first-year graduate students, bottom-running business executives or members of the newly unemployed.
As the token junior editorial writer, however, I believe the juniors also have memories, fears and dreams that deserve to be written about.
THE GRADUATING seniors are ripping off our security blanket as they go. Suddenly, we find ourselves in the middle of a room and detestable position of being seniors.
Now we are the ones who are going to have to start looking for jobs and we are the ones who have to start realizing how old we are.
Of course, some juniors have grown up already and others never will grow up. But for a great many of us, it is the shock of knowing we soon must leave school for good that finally pushes us over the edge of maturity.
JUST GOING TO college was a big step forward, of course. At least it got most of us away from home and forced us to be a little independent.
But not too independent. There are usually a lot of the old high school friends hanging around, and, although there are more than enough different people to campus to broaden anybody's mind, far, too many of us waste the opportunity.
The only thing some of us broaden is our beer gut.
IT IS ENTIRELY possible to go through four or more years of college without thinking once. Many people have done it. There are all sorts of
advisers and authorities and fads and organized living groups to do our thinking for us. And it is very easy to let them
Being a senior—or even graduating—doesn't necessarily mean you're going to stop letting them. But it certainly should influence you to try.
Growing up is, in many ways, a horrible thing. Being a kid isn't nearly as much fun as Rod McKuen thinks. There are crises and conflicts that are very bit as serious to the kid involved as any adult's crises and conflicts, but the constant piling of responsibilities and the steady transference of dreams and ambitions into memories that getting older brings are even less fun.
That is where they dread diseases,
"junioritis" and "seniorititis," come in.
Students want badly to get out and do something.
They want to be adults and see whether their ambitions have any basis in fact. And yet. . .
And yet at the same time they are afraid. They like it here. The classes are a bore, sometimes, but they like the town and they like the people. They aren't quite as sure they will like it on the outside. They waver sporadically and get restless, irritable and bored all at the same time.
I don't envy the graduating seniors at all, I too, am rather eager to get out of school. I'm not, however, eager enough to really do it.
Every junior ought to thank God he's got one more year left and ought to get to everything he can out of that year. We may have wasted the other three, but that is no excuse for wasting this one as well. We ought to try to experience, absorb and appreciate as much as possible.
Ughtdoesn't mean we will, of course. But if we do, when May 1977 rolls around and we're lying listening to our stereos loudly for the last job rejection, for the last job rejection, at least we'll have the satisfaction of having gotten something out of the past.
By Jim Bates Contributing Writer
By Jim Bates
Ob Mom,if you could only see the old boy nou
By Carl Young
Editor
I know I haven't written much lately, but its been kind of busy around here this semester, what with the mothers wanting to organize the trash man, the heart surgeons quitting at the Med Center and all of the end-of-the-year festivities?
Dear Mom.
I GUESS I would have called but this new KANS-A-N phone system has me confused. It's supposed to make things easier but can you find the phone number the system is supposed to save for? The system is supposed to save your contacts and call numbers because they can be backed up.
Anyway, it be a good semester. We've put out a paper every day we were supposed to (except some days it would have been better if we hadn't), and no one has burned the Kansan editor in effo, although I think it will be OK now.
THE PEOPLE ON the staff have been pretty good to work with. I don't quite know how to explain them, but they have nicknames like Quake, The Hig, the Akron Bomber and Gummer.
The most depressing part about this semester is that the graduating seniors have to leave school and go to work. Most of them plan to leave school but few of them have found jobs. Some are so desperate that they are going to law school instead of finding honest employment. The job market is so bad that business at the grad school and the 7th Snirit has gone up 93 per cent. It's no wonder that some can't find jobs.
IT SEEMS AS IF one of the characteristics of seniors is that they sit around in smoky rooms painfully recollecting about the good old days and how they will be missed. Everyone has at least one good streaker story and several how-I-pulled-my-cards-early-at-enrollment tales. Most of them are pretty tame and renitious, although some of the enrollement stories are pretty racy.
I've been doing a little reminiscing myself. I've tried to count the number of times someone has asked "Where are you from?" and the number of puzzled looks I got when I told them. Back home in Lewis everyone knows all the towns in the state are, but most of the people up here are from a place called Shawnee Mission. They always sneer when I tell them how big Lewis is, but at least Lewis is a real town
Well Mom, I would go on but a security guard just came in and he wants to tell me ideas on the speech department, lawyers, "All the President's Men," slavery, Klaus Stroup, economics and the Klu
Those Kansas City folks think that the Kansas border is 20 miles west of Topeka. They don't know anything about the geography of the state. They haven't heard of Larned, Greensburg or even Pratt. Usually I just say that I live out by Dodge City. They don't know where that is either, but at least they have seen "Gunsmoke."
happens to be a party taking place.
Friends hard to find. to leave
Here I am, trying to crank out this last column and I'm being totally harassed by those people as supposed to be about—my family.
friends you met in your classes,
your drinking pals and
the people you live with. Often none
of them know each other. Like a
pinball, you bounce from group
to group, wherever there
GOOD BUDDIES are hard to
By Betty Haegelin Associate Editor
know what's on each other's minds automatically.
IF YOU'RE lucky, you and your friends grow together and your ideas and feelings evolve. But don't expect to be able to don't even need to speak. You
come by and they're hard to leave. But sometimes, like when they won't let you type, when they smash you in the face with a chocolate cream pie, or when they drench your bed with water, you wonder whether it's better to put it. But then you realize it is.
But when you do need to speak, or yell, or cry, or laugh, they're there to help you along. They don't need explanations—if you're screwed up or are being so sad they ask you to please about, they're not going to question your decision. They're going to support it.
IN FACT, TRAAT's generally what friendship is all about—support. Somebody there to help take the heat off when you blow a test. When you get glazed at the bars, they support you to eat and drink with sings, you just need to call out, and "You've got a friend."
water fights. Instead, the quiet midnight bull sessions and jokes over the dinner table might have been one of our times. I know they do mine.
THE PAGE today is the last of the semester and was generally supposed to reflect each of our moods on leaving school. Somehow, walking over the path where we realized how much good friends really mean, especially at this point in my life.
The best times aren't necessarily the crazy times you popped popcorn without the lid, rode on top of elevators or had
I think the reason that most of us get upset over the idea of leaving such relationships behind is the fear that we'll never again have the chance to meet the people we once knew the same ideas and interests. But we also regret saying goodbye to many of the
Friends come in all shapes and sizes. You've got your old friends from high school with whom you can hardly relate, the
professors who have acted first as teachers, then as counselors and finally as friends. Just about the time we're able to act halfway normal toward each other, it's time to move on.
AND MOVE ON we must. It's been a lot of fun writing for the Kansan and letting you know how I feel about things. As we say at home, it's been real. But such things always must end, and I think Homer puts the matter in perspective:
"A generation of men is like a generation of leaves: The wind scatters some leaves upon the ground, while others the burgeoning wood brings in more coming on. So of men one generation springs forth and another ceases."
Optimism degree needed for job-hunting graduates
The vast majority of KU seniors faced an important turning point. The most recent their last day of classes as a student. Now they finally must answer that question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"
employment. And no one knows this better than the graduating senior in search of a job. Congress is considering a bill
For many years now they have been preparing to answer that question, but now that the time has come the answer seems less certain. Sure, they want to know what to do, they "want" to be, but as everyone knows, "You can't always get what you want."
a fulfilling job, you must first slave over the typewriter to develop an appealing resume and cover letters. Then you
EVEN WITH THE so-called recovery of the nation's economy, the unemployment rate are stupid many seniors do you know who already have jobs in the fields they have prepared for through college. And the nature of our economic system just isn't compatible with full
By John Johnston Contributing Writer
that would provide huge grants of federal money to put the unemployed back to work. But as the graduate knows the problem will never be solved. Job hunting leads the unemployed in a vicious circle that generally ends in frustration.
THIS FRUSTRATION conti-
nues in many forms. If you're going to go all-out in your effort to find
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The next objective is to develop a list of potential employers. This phase of the process allows you to revert back to the dreaming stage of your career by yourself in a high-salaried position with one of the leading firms on your list.
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Associate Editor Campus Editor Helen Higgins Yael Abel Heggman Associate Campus Editors Garc Hack Jim Bates, Bill Brown Photo Editor David Pearce David Pearce George Millnes Jake Koebler Sports Editor Ken Stone, Associate Sports Editors Ken Stone, Entertainment Editors Ela Rappert Copy Chairs Mary Ann Hudson, Mary Ann Hudson, Artist Majale Munroe, Alumni Creators News Editors John Hickey, Brendan Anderson Wire Editors Kyle Scott, Chuck Alexander, Contributing Writers John Johnson, Jim Bates
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Then you mail the letters and anxiously await a reply. In a few days the dream will fade fast as the reality of unemployment jerks you back to earth. The rejection letter can come in many forms, but its effect is generally the same.
Publisher
News Advisor David Day Business Advisor Susanne Shaw Mol Adamda
The Kanasan welcomes letters to the editor, but asks that letters be typewritten, double-spaced and no longer than 400 words. All letters are subject to editing and condensation, according to space limitations and the editor's judgment, and must be signed. KU students must provide their name, year in school and hometown; faculty must provide their name and position; others must provide their name and address.
Letters Policy
AT FIRST YOU'RE eager to tear ope: each response. And even though today's mail didn't bring any positive replies, your spirits are still high because we've been supportive employers you haven't heard from. But just as Walter Cronkite can tell you who has won an election with only 5 per cent of the precincts reporting, it doesn't take long for you to understand the results of each day's mail.
Some of the rejections take a positive approach and inform you that even though they don't have any positions open at the bank, they've been put on file and will be considered when a job is available. Then there are those that give you the hard luck story. They'll say, "There just isn't enough money to hire you, even though you do seem to be highly qualified. And finally there are the straight-A graduates," replies. Regardless of the form, they all mean the same thing.
AND IN THE END, optimism is the only acceptable approach anyway. Unemployment is a fact of life. There's no way to outlaw a lack of jobs. If everyone who was pounding the streets right now got a job tomorrow, what would happen to the tens of thousands of people who work in the unemployment print resumes? And what about all of those people who work in the unemployment fices?
The dreams of life on easy street disappeared long ago, so the newly revised mailing list is full of towns you have to look up on the map. The shock of the initial rejections has dissipated. A new model for intimism. Statements such as "the experience will be good for me" and "I like small towns" creep into your vocabulary.
SO AS THE rejections begin to pour in you move back two steps and re-evaluate your prospective employer list. The only graduates you've talked to are stepping right into the real world. If it is that it's always the other guy who has connections?
So take heart, seniors. And just remember that if you can't find a job now, you can always go to grad school.
Readers Respond
William Balfort's resignation as Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs represents the loss of the most helpful administrator I have known in my career at KU. As a representative of the university, he equates "I have often sought information and advice on student affairs from Balfort, and on every occasion he has displayed his sincerity, humanity and goodwill toward students.
BALFOUR HAS taken to heart his title of vice chancellor for STUDENT affairs. He freely exchanges information with students, is able to foresee challenges and offer solutions and takes an active, personal involvement in student life on this campus. I cannot imagine a style of administration that could be more appropriate for student leaders. I provides encouragement with a kind of spirit I have found overwhelming. I can expect Balfour to anticipate my concerns and help resolve problems, but I can expect him to provide moral support if my difficulty.
As the top administrator of a wide variety of student services
including the Union, Health Services, Information Center, and Housing, his dynamic, creative leadership inspired to the directors and staff of these divisions of Student Affairs. I have discussed Balfour's administrative quizzes in order to demonstrate the directors and remarked of their appreciation for his sensitivity to their jobs.
Balfour's departure KU's loss
To the Editor:
Tedde Tasheff
ALTHOUGH IT may seem impossible, Balfour treats everyone as though their concerns were also his. Immediately after meeting him as a freshman, it was evident to me that I could bring any assurance he might have with assurance that he was personally committed to helping me.
Student Body President
Balfour's resignation will indeed be a grievous loss to the entire student body of KU. To lose an individual who devotes his time and money to truly selfless manner will create a real void in the administration of this campus. Let us each hope the University of Kansas can put its culen task of replacing this truly magnanimous individual.
Say "what?"
I want to express my appreciation for the articles on philosophy by Mr. Gosling, to enjoy them, and I hope he continues to write them.
Hickey makes several (apparently) contradictory statements about himself and his own self." By way of explanation of this extraordinary definition of God, he says, "He transcends the polarity of Being and not being and to which I must politely respond. What?"
Next, Hickey asserts, "Thus God doesn't exist." Fine, this has long been a suspicion of mine.
I particularly enjoyed his latest piece, "Time Reveals Theologian" (April 26, 1976). I made no sense to at all.
I admit that I am not a student of philosophy, but the subject has always held a certain fascination for me. I have spent many hours with my friends, discuss topics I "doest man have free will?" "Does God exist?"
To the Editor:
Finally, Hickey says,
"Atheism is impossible,
because to cause the existence of God (which Hickey did in his book) I cannot be being itself,"(which he told us is the definition of God!)
So a theistists are affirming God's existence when they say that God doesn't exist? Is that it? I don't get it.
I realize that Hickey was not presenting his personal philosophy, but rather the opinions of Paul Tillich. This apparent contradiction that atheists affirm God's existence has led to many ways: 1) it is a part of Tillich's philosophy, 2) it is due to Hickey's inability to explain properly Tillich's philosophy, or 3) it is a result of my own experience, to understand Hickey's explanation (by far the most likely of the three).
Don't leave me hanging, Hickey. Please, write another article and explain this contradiction, or I will be forced to quit law school and take some more philosophy courses.
Ralph Besser
Wichita 1st year law student