Homeless, not hopeless

There’s an invisible struggle taking place on college campuses across the nation. Many of us who have had the privilege of a place to stay wouldn’t pay it much mind, if not for sheer lack of knowledge.

There are homeless college students passing by your side each day, who may be ashamed of their current situation, too embarrassed to ask for help. Yet on the 2013 FAFSA, more than 58,000 students identified as homeless, a 75 percent increase over the last three years, according to affordablecollegeonline.org.

Consider all the normal struggles of being a student: worrying about grades, allotting adequate time for studying and trying to have a social life.

Now add in the tremendous burden of not having a home. Crashing on friends couches or sleeping in a car, if they’re fortunate enough to have one. Homeless shelters aren’t always a guarantee.

It is time for Pierce College to take a proactive approach and vocalize any resources they offer for their homeless scholars. There are many government-sponsored programs that help millions of students, if only under strict guidelines.

Helping homeless youth doesn’t have to break the bank. It doesn’t even have to involve housing per se. It just has to invoke a sense of community.

Why not renovate one of the infamously disgusting restrooms into a communal laundromat?

The plumbing is already there. This service should be available to everyone at Pierce, for a small fee. The barcode on student ID’s can serve as a subtle way for homeless students to be given access without being charged.

The administration should open our seemingly-perpetually closed cafeteria one night a week for a soup-kitchen style gathering. There are various volunteer organizations who have the resources, but not a location, to give those in need a hot meal. Let’s give them a venue to gather in.

The Student Health Center is known for being vastly underutilized. Students pay their health fee, and fail to even ask what they get in return. This is not however, the fault of the actual Student Health Center.

The administration needs to use their influence to ensure the wide variety of services offered is common knowledge. When you’re homeless, it’s hard to keep track of what your school offers when you don’t know where your next meal is or where you’re going to lay your head at night. Very recently, a financial aid counselor was made available throughout the week in the library. In addition to that service, Pierce should have a program that connects professional counselors who specialize in homeless youth to help them find a place to live.

If a homeless student is attending post-secondary education of any kind, it’s safe to assume they don’t want to stay homeless forever, so why not lend a hand to those who’ve been dealt a bad one?

MAX SULLIVAN Reporter msullivan.roundupnews@gmail.com

There is no better way to discover yourself and grow as a person than long term independent travel. You will be offered a sense of freedom never experienced before and be removed from your comfort zones exposed to the world.

College is a time to figure out who you are and to decipher what you want to do with your life. That is a challenging endeavor if you never stray from your bubble or the structures of society and the expectation to go straight from high school, to college, to a career. It is important to take a step away and view the world from a different lens to add perspective and offer the planet the opportunity to unveil itself to you in a way that formal education never can.

People will often say they cannot afford to travel. Outside of caring for a sick loved one, these are generally nothing more than excuses. I can run down a laundry list of ways to travel for dirt cheap or options to work part time abroad. The truth is the hardest part about traveling the world is committing to the decision to go.

I know it can be done because I have backpacked Asia for 20 months, Eastern Europe for six months and lived in both Canada and Mexico. I will continue to live a life full of travel and have met thousands of people who do similar.

If you have the passion to travel there is nothing that will stop you. Money is not an impediment to your dreams and ambitions coming to fruition. Anybody who tells you

Photographers: otherwise does not understand what you are capable of or have knowledge on the immense number of options available to you.

That is why you need to travel. You will meet inspirational people along the way who will embed the fact that you can live the life of your choosing. You will experience other cultures and become more well rounded in your world views and understanding of the world, which will make you more desirable in the workforce and in future relationships.

Being separated from your friends and family will allow you to mature and experience new things with total freedom and no constraints but your own. That freedom will allow you to explore yourself and build on the character that you have already developed in ways that will not occur staying within your circle of friends at home or even away at college.

The above cannot be attained to the same degree on short trips. It requires a longer journey to immerse yourself in a culture and the flow of travel to reap the rewards. Extended trips allow the time to reflect and ponder how you want to spend your days on earth, opposed to being rammed through the system and coming out on the other side still unaware of what you want to do.

You will be a better person and have a greater appreciation for life when you come home. Plus it will probably be the most fun thing you ever do and the best decision you ever made.

JONATHAN HINTZ Reporter msullivan.roundupnews@gmail.com

There has been a long debate on whether students should be able to take a year long vacation from school for travel.

Most students will say that they need a year vacation from school so they can rejuvenate themselves and then continue their education when they return from their break.

However, some students will disagree with that because some feel that if they take significant time away from school it will be harder to continue their education. There are many reasons as to why some feel this way. One reason could be, once someone takes such a long time off, they might not want to continue their studies. They will have gotten used to not studying. They will want to continue exploring other things without actual education or training and then realize they will feel stuck in the same situation. They will find it harder to go back to school.

Students should also ask themselves an important question. How can they afford to take a year off for travel financially? Students who work and go to school have little money as it is. How will they be able to afford to travel if they won’t work while they are exploring other places?

The answer is very simple. They can’t, at least not on their own. The only way possible is if their parents fund them for all their travel expenses for a year. After that, when they come back home, what will be next for them?

They will return broke, looking for a job, and try to go back to school if they have the time to continue their education.

The problem with that is, they will be so preoccupied with getting money to pay their bills, they will have to get full-time jobs instead of part-time jobs just to support themselves and regain the money spent on travel. They won’t have time to continue their education.

It will not be wise for a student who barely makes ends meet to try and take a year off of school to travel.

It takes a surplus of time and money, wherever it comes from, to do so. Students have to realize the consequences of their decisions, should they decide to take leisurely time off for rest.

Will it be wise to take a break to travel if they’re going to end up broke? If they live with their parents, how much will it cost to support the students and what price do they have to pay at the end of their vacation?

People will make their decision on their own. If they do decide