<ming to Carleton requires making certain sacrifices. For example, you give up any rights you may have had to sleeping. You accept that you will spend the next four years alternately ghostly pale and sunburned, never will your skin tone look “healthy.” You also, and this is possibly our greatest collective loss, will never watch your college friend group get married and pregnant before graduation. Instead of finding “careers,” we do things like Teach for America and grad school. While some of our peers are registering for weddings and baby showers, our biggest concern is how much free pizza there will be at Mai Fete. Most of us are nowhere near starting a family, and, based on the average level of maturity on campus during Party Week, that’s probably a good thing. We rarely consider that there are people who are taking on actual adult challenges right now.
Fortunately for me, very few of my high school friends came to Carleton and instead went to Brigham Young University. All but one of these friends are either engaged, married or married and pregnant. I read their blogs and obsessively peruse their facebook wedding albums. When one of my closest friends’ old boyfriends became engaged to a good Mormon girl last week, I can’t say any of us were surprised. They’re getting married this summer, a year before either will graduate, and are undoubtedly going to have a very happy life together.
BYU has prepared my friends for this life. They’ve embraced it fully, moving into the “rabbit huts” (housing for married students) and procreating accordingly. From what I understand, the structure of the university allows for students to get started on these adult projects quite early. It definitely stems out of the Mormon religion, but BYU is also a well respected institution of higher education, much like Carleton.
However, it’s impossible to imagine Carleton as a breeding ground for mini-Carls, the off-spring of the class of 2011. Maybe our classes are too intense to find time to change diapers. Perhaps we consume too much alcohol on Wednesdays through Saturdays to attend weekly Lamaze classes. Or maybe, just maybe, we came here because for us, college is supposed to be about enjoying the fleeting four years that we have to be simultaneously completely immature and intellectually brilliant.
The editorial represents the views of The Carletonian editors.