Class in session
COLLEGE campuses across Arkansas are seeing a familiar sight as thousands of students carrying everything from lamps to mattresses crowd the university parking lots. Call it the annual tradition of move-in days.
Whether it’s UA, ASU, ATU, UCA, UALR, UAFS or any other abbreviation for an Arkansas college campus, students are settling into dorms, apartments and Greek housing.
Soon previously lifeless college campuses will be swarming with bicycles, Frisbees, hammocks and roaming packs of young adults glued to the screens in their hands (watch out, motorists).
Doe-eyed freshmen are dreaming about the next four years of their on-campus life as they romanticize every aspect from making new friends to late-night study sessions for those oh-so-blistering finals. Meanwhile, wary seniors are trying to psyche themselves into finishing one last year.
Cafeterias are gearing up for serving meals, campus bookstores are preparing for inevitable outrage over textbook prices, and security officers are preparing for drivers who will ignore signs, park inappropriately and then bemoan their eventual tickets.
As life again flows into these campuses, some more politically minded students will band together fueled by distress at the state of the country and plot to fix its many problems with protests for causes they’re confident are all but absolute. Hopefully some of these students will be open to differing points of view, and their school will foster an environment to challenge their young beliefs, but we won’t hold our breath.
And it’s not just students gearing up for another academic year, but professors as well. English professors are looking forward to inevitable essays about why pot should be legalized. Art professors are looking forward to critiquing sessions where every student simply responds with, “I like it.”
But perhaps what our fair state looks forward to most about students returning is college football. It won’t be long before Razorbacks, Red Wolves, Bears, Wonderboys, Bisons, Lions and many more teams kick off their seasons with screaming fans in the stands and behind television sets.
Have fun, kids. These are supposed to be some of the best years of your life. And if you want our advice—
Aw, who’re we kidding? Y’all will figure college life out for yourselves, just like we did. And to the high school students? Get ready. You’re next.