State Stereotype False

There are intelligent people at UW-Richland. To clarify: there are intelligent students at UW-Richland.

The stereotype of our beloved 2-year transfer institutions as an entry point for high school slackers and people who can’t go anywhere else isn’t true at all. At UW-Richland, you can find every type of person: [valedictorians,] [? point scorers,] [“super seniors,”] [% of students are over the age of 35.] Many of our students may not have even tried to get into a 4-year university, deciding not to “waste their time.” Who knows how admission officers would have reacted to these students? There’s no way to tell. Some students, including this writer, were accepted at 4-year institutions and still decided to come here. Why? Personally, I thought I would appreciate the small setting.

Sure, UW-Richland is hardly bigger than my high school, and for many of you readers, it’s smaller. And it really is “high school” all over again. Mild competition for a good caf table exists. A few students claim the all coveted “popularity.” And our professors sometimes treat us like kids. But even more often, we act like kids.

We’re not a high school, though – Student Senate is hardly a beauty pageant or popularity contest. The basketball “stars” barely stand out in the very small crowd. And if you decided to skip a class for no apparent reason, no one will cheer for you behind a professor’s back. We’ll gossip like crazy about how you’re a failure… why would you pay for something and then skip it? (See, I’ve been part of these conversations… sorry...)

Over the summer, this writer had a chance to stay at a private 4-year institution. The atmosphere is entirely different – the group of students sat together and read, and it was perfectly acceptable. You may be thinking, ‘Well, she only met losers.’ No, I met at least fifty students over the summer and almost every one was a member of a fraternity or sorority. Do I really need to remind you what frats are famous for? (If so, I direct you to the movie “Old School.”) Now, when was the last time you picked up a book for fun? Is it so long ago because of how you feel others will treat you?

UW-Richland students care a lot less about advancing their knowledge outside of the classroom walls. Sure, the majority of our student population may know the rules to a hundred drinking games, but do they know Ayn Rand or the process of a negative blooded female’s body rejecting the sperm of a positive blooded male? Probably not. Just an added fact: these private school students I met and tried to infiltrate this summer knew a higher level of game rules than even 4-year university students. These students knew the bottom of a bottle very well.

I’m not writing that UW-Richland students are stupid or that we should try to be something we’re not. UW-Richland is not a high-level academic intensive university, but we are also not a collection of the dumbest kids of the state (plus, some from out of state). A lot of our students have a ton of life experience or attend UW-R to get experience in the social campus groups.
There’s an impression across the state that Wisconsin Colleges represent the least educated and cultured students in the state. Are we making it true?

With this, I plead and beg for you all to let your intelligence show – read something, discuss something (besides drinking), write something, study something, research something you’ve always wanted to know. We live in a world of Google and Wikipedia. There’s no reason that everyone in the wired world can’t know anything and everything that he wants.