We’ve all seen it, we’ve all heard it – from the comments muttered under people’s breath, to the long threads on Facebook, Keene State College students have been illustrated to only be destructive partiers, and we are sick of it.
During this year in particular, there was a lot of fear in the Keene community that KSC students would go back to terrorizing the streets of Keene again, like what happened during the riots of 2014 Pumpkin Festival. But we are proud that nothing happened this year.
This however, did not stop the continuous thread of Facebook comments that still bash the students. In certain people’s eyes, we can never do anything right anymore after the riots, even though it has been three years.
To them, all KSC students are the ones who caused the riots, even though this year will mark the last year of students who were actually present at the 2014 Pumpkin Festival, as the rest were not in college yet. We would like to move on and put that in the past.
We’d rather be recognized for the good rather than the bad, and there is a lot of good that KSC brings to the Keene community, that seems to slide under the radar.
Pretty much every major offered at KSC is one that is aimed towards helping people and serving the community.
Education, safety and occupational health, nursing and criminal justice studies, are just a few of the many majors that have jobs aimed at benefiting the community.
The majors at KSC aren’t the only thing that benefits the communities surrounding the college.
The fraternities and sororities on campus are also constantly involved in service with the community. Just this past week, the Tau Kappa Epilson (TKE) Fraternity slept in a box to raise money for the Hundred Nights Shelter in Keene. KSC first year students are required to do a community service day clean up during their orientation, where they go around Keene and pick up trash.
KSC students contribute to the economy in Keene as well, whether it’s from shopping at local store or even the taxes on the college that go to the city.
It’s a symbiotic relationship – the college benefits from being in a tight-knit community with many shops and places to work for students, while the city benefits from our service.
When we see or hear people making rude comments about KSC students and 2014 Pumpkin Festival, it makes us wonder, when will people move on? It’s upsetting that there’s a stigma around college students, especially in this town.
Many of us live here for about 8 to 9 months out of the year for four years, so Keene does become a second home.
When we see people trashing Keene State it’s upsetting to us as well because it’s not just the home to Keene residents. It’s “home” for many college students too.
There are tons of stereotypes surrounding college students, but it’s up to us individually if we want to fill that stereotype. Our image is what we make of it.
No matter what there will always be people on the Internet who troll around and want to bring us down.
There will always be adults who make comments and forget that they were once in college too.
So it’s time to move past the comments and leave behind what’s happened in the past.
Whether certain people in the community want to move forward is their own decision, but we need to continue to do our parts and do good for our community.
We must acknowledge as students that it is beneficial and important to do, regardless of if we get recognition or not.
