Collegiate Press Roundup

We present our weekly review of selected student columnists and opinion writers. For this week, they reflect on the impact of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, offer advice on what to consider when selecting a major, the perils of denying evolution and undergraduates who need to grow up.

1. If you’ve just arrived for your first year of college and haven’t decided on a major field, the editors of WVU’s Athenaeum offer some sage advice on what you should think about.
2. On the other hand, a senior columnist for the Rutgers Daily Targum bemoans a classroom know-it-all who didn’t know very much.
3. The recent GOP presidential debates leave a political analyst for the UConn Daily Campus dazed by the candidates’ apparent cruelty.
4. After a brief moment of national unity and dignified mourning after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, our political landscape has been disfigured by violent rhetoric and trampling on civil liberties, writes and editorialist in the UW/Madison Badger-Herald.
5. By contrast, a colleague in the UCLA Daily Bruin suggests a positive alternative to anger and recrimination.
6. Although Brown University may indeed be a diverse place in socio-economic and racial terms, a columnist for the Daily Herald finds precious little intellectual or political diversity among his undergraduate peers.
7. As the 2012 presidential election approaches, an op ed writer for the South Carolina Gamecock hopes that voters will be more informed on the issues than was the case in 2008.
8. An op ed columnist for LSU’s Daily Reveille fears for his school’s academic reputation, due to some unwholesome views on evolution that have been circulating on campus.
9. College is for grownups, something a significant number of undergraduates don’t seem to realize, argues a staffer for the Daily Kansan.
10. A reporter for the PSU Daily Collegian wonders if an Illinois court ruling carries potentially ominous consequences for collegiate journalism.
11. Following a recent visit to Japan, a regular for the Dakota Student finds public comportment in the US sadly wanting by comparison.
12. A guest columnist for the University of Houston’s Daily Cougar argues that her school needs to become a smoke-free campus.