Nicholas Mah
I leave you with these final words.
To you who are not graduating:
I spent the entirety of my four years here completely dissatisfied with many aspects of this university. I’ve always been particularly bothered by the treatment of students by the administration, both in disciplinary and academic situations. Unfortunately, I did little to correct this situation, either for myself or for those around me.
Yes, we rebelled by breaking most, if not all, of the rules on campus. I even wrote letters to my R.A. and some of my other persecutors. But while these may seem like great ways to be involved and make a difference, they rewarded me with little more than a handful of write-ups (maybe two handfuls) and some laughs with my partners in crime.
Now I feel that we could have and should have done more. There is a legitimate “fringe,” or non-conformist, or open-minded portion of our student body that arrives at Pepperdine completely dumbfounded by the lack of anything that resembles what college was supposed to be like.
We are the people who transfer, get in trouble or kicked out, or work at the library. And while we were busy hiding in our dorm rooms with towels stuffed under the doors, we gave the rest of the student body a leadership role in our own college career.
We hated everything and we accomplished next to nothing. That’s how you can be different. If you sympathize with just a fraction of the things I say or have said this year, you are probably one of the people I mentioned in the above paragraph.
There are more of you than you think, and you can change things around here. Get involved, get the support of your fellow classmates and stand up to the things you see wrong around you. Sure, it’s just Pepperdine, but there is no reason for it to be this bad. It’s college, and it could be significantly better. Maybe you can make that happen.
It’s no longer Mah world, it’s your world. Good luck.
P.S. — Buy seniors food, don’t go Greek, do go overseas, move off campus, and, as always, fight the power.
To the graduates (two things):
1. What did we just pay $120,000 for?
2. Consider this — The late ‘60s and early ‘70s bore witness to the first effective challenge of the established authority by youths in this country. Racial injustices, women’s rights and Vietnam were all directly affected by the efforts of those students and young people. Then along came the Cold War, McCarthyism and Reagan, and the pendulum swung back.
Where is the pendulum now?
The recent history of our country has shown that our current leaders are willing only to go backward in terms of our development, not forward. For the first time in 40 years we have witnessed legislation that takes away our rights as citizens. It is up to us as the new and next leaders of this country to make it known that these transgressions will not stand. Politically, socially, environmentally, religiously, whatever, take your pick. But make your choice, and do something.
So … what are you going to do when you graduate?
For me, I’m going to keep on learning and screwing things up, and hopefully have a good time along the way. In the meantime …
To those few teachers who opened my mind to some new ideas — Thank you.
To the administrators who didn’t kick me out — Thank you.
To my classmates, both friends and not —Thank you, and good luck.
It hasn’t been real, but it’s been fun. I’ll see y’all on the flipside, or maybe in jail. Peace.
April 04, 2002