Welcome to all of the 6,000-plus University of Colorado Boulder freshmen who have arrived in Boulder to get ready for fall classes to begin tomorrow, Aug. 23.
I urge you to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity to pursue your studies at one of the nation’s top schools, and also hope you experience Boulder’s remarkable beauty and outdoor recreational opportunities.
What an exciting, frightening, fast-moving era we all live in! For many of you, your studies will give you competency in economic sectors that didn’t exist 20-30 years ago.
With the niceties out of the way, come May 2025, grab your diploma and take your place in society, and find a job (preferably in your field of study). But take comfort: The minimum wage keeps rising, in case you’re good at flipping burgers as you return to live in your parents’ basement.
Seriously, four years should be more than enough time for you to figure out what you want to do with your lives. I’m putting you on notice: “make a new plan, Stan,” none of you are on the six-year track; pick up your diploma and “drop off the key, Lee,” then use your EcoPass and “hop on the bus, Gus” and “get yourself free.” Thank Paul Simon for that advice!
Perhaps you’re a problem-solver. If so, take your pick:
We have a relentless pandemic that has killed more than 620,000 Americans and more than a million in several nations.
The chickens have come home to roost, confirming that climate change is wreaking havoc with high temperatures, lost water supplies, forest fires and melting icebergs. Perhaps your fate is to make a great discovery that will prevent further damage to the environment.
Your generation insists that people be more responsible and socially aware by protecting both civil rights and voting rights, that we recycle far more than we do now, that we recognize mental health needs to be addressed, advocate for the transition to electric cars, that we fight back against bullies who pick on the weak and more.
Most of you were born in 2003 and belong to Generation Z (for Zoomers, all 68 million of them), comprised of those born roughly between 1997 and 2012.
The endless rollout of new technology has heavily influenced you. Between burying your noses in your phones, using TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat (not Facebook) to express emotions without words and believing far too many inaccurate postings on the internet, you’ve got us older folks worried about your judgment and critical thinking abilities. Prove us wrong.
You are keenly aware of the major threats to the health of our society, created by both an international pandemic and a global climate crisis, while many increasingly question the validity of science. Well, facts matter.
Personal protection equipment will be part of fashion trends for a few years, with users adapting face masks and other PPE as part of their self-expression. CU has, as you know by now, mandated that all students, faculty, staff and visitors are required to wear masks in public indoor spaces.
CU officials greeted you when you arrived on campus. They wished you good luck. And though I agree with that sentiment, I’m also going to wish you a little bad luck. The effects of the virus during your high school senior year were only a harbinger of your future life’s challenges.
I say it would help you to live through some tough experiences besides the pandemic. Why? Because they will make you stronger, more humble, sensitive and empathetic, more capable of surviving on your own and better able to handle life’s curveballs.
Eventually, you’ll thank me; just do so before May 2025, not after!
Learn from the following experiences:
The sooner you learn that life is unfair, the better you’ll be able to cope with it.
If you’re not already a member of a minority that you at least learn what others have gone through and continue to endure as they encounter prejudice. Your tolerance and compassion levels will grow from this.
If you are forced to periodically go hungry, perhaps it will steer you to enter public service to help the underprivileged.
If you endure deep emotional pain about something, whether it’s a romantic breakup or losing someone close to you, this will help you learn that people’s pain may not show on the surface.
Learn to be comfortable and not afraid to be alone.
If your confidence plummets, making you feel you have control over little or nothing, the lesson is not to try to control everything in your life. Let go! Things happen generally how they are meant to be. We are powerless over so much of life’s events.
Question yourself — often — asking, “What is my purpose in life?” Keep doing so until you find comfortable answers.
I wish you success in the classroom — but even more victories in your personal development.
Godspeed!
Jim Martin can be reached at jimmartinesq@gmail.com
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August 22, 2021 at 05:59AM
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Opinion: Jim Martin: Dear freshman class: I wish you a little bad luck - Boulder Daily Camera
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