The Pressure Brought On By College

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The Pressure Brought On By College

Socially, religiously, and scholastically, a person’s values are severely challenged as he enters college. A major university has many evil faces that can alter a person’s values if he or she is not careful. Fraternities and their counterpart, sororities, target freshmen mainly because they’re young, easily influenced, and lonesome. Religious organizations try their best to counter the fraternities by gathering these young scholars to spread their word. The University of Georgia itself causes turmoil in these students' beliefs by requiring classes that promote a change in merit. These are the main things that I have encountered as a student through the University, and all three intrude on my privacy. (in her essay "Keeping Close to Home,")bell hooks argues that a college campus is a place where people hide there true selves. At a time when someone’s values are constantly being tested they should show their true feelings in order to avoid conflicts later in life.

Fraternities and sororities play a major role in the choices a person makes as he enters college. They target the young because they are simply the easiest to influence. Most of these students are away from home with no friends. They are hungry to belong to a group, and a Fraternity offers a sense of togetherness that these lambs away from the herd need. Once hooked and interested in becoming a member, recruits are constantly challenged to drink and perform embarrassing tasks to prove how dedicated they are to becoming a brother. These rushies can possibly be beaten, definitely made to clean non-stop, and constantly forced to run errands for the older brothers. Hazing, or abusing a recruit, has supposedly been abolis...

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...he said that a university forces you to hide your background. She said this about the years she attended Stanford, "I lived alone, like the one Mormon student who kept to himself as he made a concentrated effort to remain true to his religious beliefs and values" (hooks 88 ). Yes, you can be highly influenced at a college to change, but I have never had to hide my beliefs. I guess it's different for me to attend UGA and for her to attend Stanford. She should not mask who she is, and she should be proud and teach these people not to stereotype. Overall, a University system is a great place and I love every second of being on campus. There are just some things that need to be fixed before I graduate.

Works Cited

hooks, bell. "Keeping Close to Home." The Presence of Others. Eds. Andrea Lunsford and John Ruszkiewicz. New York: St. Martins Press, 1997. 85-95.

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