I learned a lot from the students of LSU this semester. 
The events that took place less than 700 miles north of LSU in Ferguson, Missouri, had students talking about racism from the first day we came back to campus. The upcoming election had students urging each other to vote, and many protested the lack of third party candidates in the U.S. Senate race. 
Students came together in October’s Take Back the Night demonstration to lift up the voices of domestic and sexual assault victims. 
This semester centered on students standing up to discuss the real-world issues that affect the LSU community. Our generation has moved past reading about social movements in textbooks to forming our own civil rights groups and letting our frustration and ideas for change be known. 
When we were taught about our nation in high school history classes, everything seemed wrapped up, nice and neat. Women could vote; black Americans could vote, and no one could be denied entrance to a public facility for any reason. But walking around LSU’s campus, it’s clear that many students have learned more realities that we weren’t taught. 
History isn’t finished. It’s a class that is being taught to us as the textbook is still being written. One day our children will open up their American History textbooks and see the events that sparked die-ins, protests and marches across the nation. And we’ll be able to tell them our first-hand accounts from the protests we planned and attended. 
It is my hope that the LSU community will not let its newfound activist mindset fade. We just elected several new politicians into office who are much, much older than us — people who do not understand what it is like to be a twenty-something in the digital age. 
It’s more important now than it ever has been for us to use our voices. In 1978, the first openly gay politician to be elected into public office in California, Harvey Milk, gave a speech on the importance of letting your stance be known to everyone around you:
“You must come out. I know that it is hard and will hurt them but think about how they will hurt you in the voting booth! 
. . . Once and for all, break down the myths, destroy the lies and distortions. For your sake. For their sake. For the sake of the youngsters who are becoming scared by the votes from Dade to Eugene.”
Milk was directing his speech toward the gay and lesbian Americans who were scared to come out as homosexuals to their homophobic and otherwise intolerant households. But he makes a valid point for all of us who are growing up in an America that was not made for us. 
We cannot sit silently at the dinner table on Christmas Day and let our older family members make sexist, classist and racist statements as if they are acceptable. We cannot let the fear that our families will disapprove of our opinions on the older generation’s choices for our nation. 
When our older family members went into the voting booth over the weekend, do you think student debt crossed their minds? What about the rising cost of tuition because of cuts to public college funding? Of course not. We vote for our own individual interests. 
Our thoughts will not be counted until we let our voices be heard. And we will never really be part of this country until we begin taking part in the uncomfortable conversations. 
Jana King is a 20-year-old communication studies junior from Ponchatoula, Louisiana. You can reach her on Twitter @jking_TDR.