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By Salahideen Salem Opinion Columnist A complaint not often heard when attending Saint Mary’s is the disparity of opportunities between dorming and commuting students. While many students live close by, others are not often afforded that opportunity when it comes to college, and as a result, it is easy to miss many events for those who do not live in places such as Walnut Creek. While dorming is a less time-consuming alternative, the increased tuition of dorming nowadays makes this more difficult for many students. This grows in starker relief in certain situations where one may live distantly, but not so far as to justify the increased costs of bunking in college. As a result, they are bound to miss many opportunities, such as through events, clubs, or even just forming bonds. Firstly, when attending Saint Mary’s, I was struck by how it was difficult to do much of anything when one was set on a timeframe. Many clubs are restricted to working late nights and when I began participating in the Visiting Writers’ Series course, I had a great deal of difficulty attending because they were set late at night. While one may argue that these are the only times where people can organize these events, it also means that people who come for night classes will seldom have the time to attend these events. Moreover, when I gave my contact information to many of the clubs I was interested in at the beginning of the fall semester, I quickly found they were often set at times when I wasn’t available. Both my brother and I normally just go home whenever we finish classes, and oftentimes free time was dedicated to just finishing work whenever we stayed in school. It made for a rough experience when adding the hour long drive home to it and the value of time to the mix. Being home is a time to wind down, and often staying late to attend events or clubs when you couldn’t before add to stress when there is little respite to the constant flow. On the opposite end of things, going home early is not a solution either. This robs many students of the opportunity to create bonds and in general, further adds to the anxiety propagated by the consistent rush and flow of college. It prevents them from becoming a part of the community and weighing more on issues or matters that pass through time. The inability to join a club makes matters especially difficult, as it grows tougher to befriend anyone or even interact with others beyond the few classes you have with them. It makes for further difficulties and adds to a growing sense of isolation as you are consistently locked out of the loop. While these complaints are not often vocalized in my experience, they tend to feel very real as a commuter, especially when one cannot devote all their time to college. While I feel like the community is great in Saint Mary’s, having limited opportunity to access it really hinders one’s enjoyment to it. It needs more time to be balanced among all sides, as well as more options to use apps to attend events remotely, such as through Zoom. Recently, many events now have been growing later and later in the hours of the day, and often I feel like it makes trying to join in on college activity or camaraderie exhausting. What good is a beneficial event if you can’t take it in due to all the stress and anxiety that comes from the constant flow of activity? We need to balance college life not only for people who dorm but also for commuters so that they can have a healthy and productive school year.
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By Nicholas Zuniga Visiting Opinion Columnist Fall of 2024 marks the first semester of the Graduate Student Association (GSA) at Saint Mary’s College of California. The GSA, including elected official positions such as president and vice-president, has gathered together in attempts to serve the graduate student body by implementing positive change for the graduate student experience. Considering the lack of embrace and inclusion for graduate students in the general - undergraduate - student experience at Saint Mary’s, graduate students are having to go above and beyond to be recognized within the school’s student body and student associations. Looking at prominent student associations, Associated Students at Saint Mary’s has a particularly influential role in undergraduate student life. Associated Students, an organization on campus that is “committed to fostering the holistic development of students,” has a well-established executive student council and is responsible for allocating $250,000 in funds to student organizations, clubs, programming and more. Within the association are several governing documents, including a constitution, bylaws, election code and budget. However, graduate students are not named or included in any of these documents or executive boards, only “undergraduate” is used. Regina Molitoris, the current president of Associated Students, who, notably, with her menstrual products resolution last year, provided students access to free menstrual products in campus restrooms, was asked about why graduate students are not integrated within Associated Students, “We address the problems and the concerns of the undergraduate, solely because in our constitution it says ‘undergraduate,’ Molitoris said. “The funds allocated to us are paid by the undergraduate students. It’s not to denigrate graduate students at all… I’m very happy about [the formation of the GSA].” Molitoris clarified that her focus for the year remains on undergraduates. However, she noted that Associated Students may be collaborating with the GSA to hold events and help facilitate the works of events. Speaking with Dr. Rebecca Anguiano, a department chair and professor within the counseling program here at Saint Mary’s, she noted that, “[Saint Mary’s] campus… It's a lovely campus, right? And it's geared towards undergraduate students.” “Our graduate students are amazing. They deserve to be represented,”Anguiano added. “Thinking about how we make campus accessible to our graduate students is really important… What are we supposed to do for working professionals who can't get to campus before their four pm class, and it's already a struggle to get [to class] by four.” As a graduate student, it is upsetting to see that only undergraduate student organizations receive funding, from the school, that enhances their extracurricular student experience. As a graduate student who is living on campus, I will be paying just below $50,000 dollars for this academic year alone. Even though my cost of attendance is high, my opportunity for extra funding is low. Graduate students are not eligible for the Pell Grant and we do not have paid leadership opportunities like elected students within Associated Students. Furthermore, textbook scholarships! I spent around $350 by renting most of my 11 textbooks this semester, and I did not get any scholarship from the textbook fund. All I received were several emails telling me to ‘please be patient and await further communications.’ Hopefully, in the near future, graduate students will begin to feel more supported by the beautiful Saint Mary’s campus.  Image C/O GaelAlumni Instagram Page By Emily Brazeal Opinion Columnist
Fall is almost upon us. That’s right, the season of pumpkin spice lattes, Gilmore Girls and crunchy leaves has returned once again. A time where we cater our Spotify playlist to act as if we were the main character of a John Hughes movie. We aestheticize everything from our drinks to our clothing and even our academics. As fun as that can be in reality–life isn’t a Pinterest board. Although we romanticize this season, it proves to be a very taxing one. Starting rigorous classes, juggling extracurriculars, and new potentially stressful social situations all pile up. Midterms loom over us for the whole of October. This stress is not uncommon, as about 1 in 3 students report being anxious about returning to school. In fact, the U.S. is reported to have the most stressed students. For many of us autumn beckons the return of the academic stress and long hours of trying not to fall asleep in the library. Yet Americans overwhelmingly choose autumn as their favorite season and it is chronically romanticized year after year on every social media platform. In fact, our overwhelming classes are one of the main things we aestheticize. We pretend as if our all-nighters are fall-esque instead of completely frustrating. In all autumn’s beauty, this is also the time when seasonal depression returns. The most common type of seasonal depression is fall-onset, beginning in autumn and persisting through winter. As the cool weather begins to creep in symptoms like fatigue, feelings of hopelessness and oversleeping take over. This is not the reality of mini pumpkins and platform uggs that is portrayed on my Pinterest feed. So what is the reason? Are we so delusional to reality that we prioritize pumpkin spice over mental health? Is it because we are so stressed that we desperately need to aestheticize this season to stop ourselves from going crazy? Or do we simply like stepping on crunchy leaves? I don’t fully know why fall becomes an over-romanticized season. Everyone's reason is different, but maybe in the end it’s just because it’s fun to do. However, this over-romanticizing can overshadow the very real stress and depression that come with the change of season. We end up comparing our social media feeds of scented candles and apple picking when really we should be checking up on each other. Maybe check in on yourself. I’m not telling you to stop romanticizing autumn. I love spiced coffee, “cute” study sessions, and getting mad at Rory Gilmore. But maybe we should pause for a second in this stressful season to check in on ourselves and others. Then we can go buy ourselves a pumpkin spice latte. |
STAFFAndrew Martinez Cabrera '26, Archives
November 2024
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