Hope is not a method.
This philosophy has held true for me since my father uttered it my first semester at LSU.
Hope does not fill my car’s gas tank, prepare me for bad weather nor land me a job. It does not keep me safe nor write my term papers. Hope should be placed at the bottom of the toolbox to be used only in the direst of cases.
Fortunately, you reading this newspaper means I don’t have to resort to hope when I consider the future.
You decided to come here and form a stable career base rather than be stuck behind a fast food counter for the next six decades. While one can argue the business world needs different skill sets, I’m perfectly fine with McDonald’s going out of business because the workforce is doing greater things.
Each student who has made it to finals week to pick up this paper has already proven their worth.
For one, we are intelligent — 28.59 percent of students received TOPS money in the 2012-13 school year. That means the entire tax-paying body of Louisiana is investing its money into almost a third of LSU students. The state knows we are the future, and we will be the ones keeping the system running as our investors age.
Perhaps more notably, however, are those students who did not get stellar GPAs in high school and chose to attempt Louisiana’s university anyway. Whether this is your first semester or your tenth, you have demonstrated your will to do what you believe you have to do. Whether your focus has been on fashion design or oceanography, you have had to adopt a renaissance man mindset to juggle all of the accounting, history, math, art, science, humanities and whatever other subjects your degree requires of you.
Lastly, you either went through the effort of picking up the newspaper or going online to our site to see what things are happening outside of your knowable sphere of life. I wish we gave out badges for this, because you are the kind of person who will really be able to kick ass in this world. You go above and beyond the call of duty by being interested in things beyond your immediate self.
My respect for you is why I have not given in to complaints about the headiness of my writing. I have had numerous people, including some of my peers from Student Media, inform me that my words are too big, or that they understand the concept I am trying to communicate but think others might struggle too much with it.
I acknowledge my writing has a distinct flair. However, a look at the opinion section on any day shows just how vastly different this section’s writing styles have been. Some writers are data-happy, and others focus more on morals. Some call for tradition, and others for innovation.
My focus has been to get students to think a little deeper; I do not intend to flip people’s philosophies, just broaden them. I write and make videos for my peers who have the capability of doing this.
So I congratulate you for taking in the news this week, despite it being the most stressful time of the semester. You will be the one opening a business, getting your soundtracks into movies or documenting poverty. You will be designing museums or leading discussions at a UN summit. You have the drive and the ability to see the bigger picture. You are the person we need.
Thanks for reading.