COMMUNITY COLLEGE STIGMA JED ALVAREZ junior JA: I’m all for community colleges and I think that the stigma around them is unjustifi ed. I have an older brother who went to community college and I can confi dently say that he’s on the right path, currently getting his nursing degree. However, I can understand the stigma around community colleges, considering how much importance people assign to college. DL: Especially in this area, there is a strong stigma surrounding attending a community college instead of a traditional four-year college or university. Menlo-Atherton has a portion of students who are in the top one-percent of America — privilege and wealth-wise — so they can go through college in a bubble. Community college is not part of that bubble, so despite it being a very reasonable and cost eff ective option, many students and parents avoid it because they don’t understand the situation fully. So many students and parents are obsessed with the name of the college when — this is especially true for undergraduate — the college doesn’t matter. It’s ironic, really, that in one of the richest and, purportedly, educated areas of America, we understand less about higher education than ever. DANA LAU junior TRIGGER WARNINGS SK: I think trigger warnings are acceptable to have, and that is because we never can truly understand what a person feels. If a person needs to leave, let them leave, it is not up to us to “toughen them up” even if it is better for them to have thicker skin. We must learn to give independence to people so they can come to an understanding by themselves; if we forced them, we would actually prevent them from growing. 39 SINAN KARADOGAN junior
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