By Clarissa Olson Posted May 9, 2018
I hear it all of the time. “Stupid freshmen” this, “stupid freshmen” that. And every day, it’s always the same. Some of the nicest upperclassmen I know have said it and never even batted an eye. When I told people I was writing this, they just laughed. Nobody seems to think it’s a big deal. I’ve even heard teachers say it. It’s all good fun, but not everyone sees it that way. In fact, a lot of us are quite offended by the completely uncalled-for discrimination.
I know the only reason you think I’m complaining is because I’m a freshman. Yeah, I’m a freshman. Everyone was at one point, but that’s just the excuse. Everyone else got pushed around as a freshman and so now they push us around too. They say that’s fair then never give us a real reason. I would just love to ask where the logic in that is, but I have much better things to do with my time.
I am a freshman, and I work really hard to achieve what I have. I spend entire weeks in late nights in order to excel in everything. On occasion, I’ve even stayed up all night without having procrastinated, and I’m definitely not the only one. I’m proud of that. Then people go and call us stupid, and do not even get to know us. I’m sure you understand how good that makes us feel about ourselves. I happen to know a lot of freshmen, just like me, who put in way more effort than many upperclassmen, but we’re just stupid freshies, right?
Apparently, it’s completely okay to treat someone as if they have no mental capacity or reliability simply because they’re a few years younger. It’s really not any different. I think I’m going to call it classism. Yes, there are a few freshmen who are rowdy, make extremely poor choices, and exercise little to no common sense. Yeah, a few out of how many hundreds? Are the rest of us just supposed to take that?
I’m sure you’ve all met people in your own class who embody the freshmen stereotype worlds better than any of the current freshmen do. Would you want to be seen as being the exact same way as them just because they’re in your class? How would you feel if you just started in a new school just trying to fit in, and immediately when they met you, everyone just turned away without giving you the slightest inclination as to why? It’s called judging, Lowry, judging. The exact same judging we all claim that we never do.
Get off your high horse, Lowry. Class superiority is not a thing. The fact that someone is a senior, a junior, or even a sophomore, doesn’t make them any better than anyone else. That is something that has to be earned, and treating underclassmen as inferior is definitely not going to do just the opposite. It just makes people extremely self-centered and self-important and frankly just hurts people’s feelings. We don’t have to push the rest of us around to feel good about ourselves, Lowry. We are better than that, but what do I know? I mean, I am just a stupid freshman.
