The Knox Student

In this last first TKS issue of spring term for the seniors, The seniors on the staff of The Knox Student (TKS) have been realizing more and more every day their rapid approach toward graduation. This is likely the case for seniors throughout the rest of campus as well, and it has been making us wonder, in what ways we have grown the most.

While most things that come to mind seem beneficial—our ability to think critically and organize any number of events because of the vast resources on campus, for example—our uncertainty of the future is bound to make us wonder about the ways in which Knox has not prepared us.

When talking about Knox to prospective students, the concept of community is a strong presence. It would be hard to convince anyone that this is a negative thing. However, does Knox prepare us as well when it comes to striving as individuals? Does it prepare us to move across the country (or to another country)on our own, without our security net, our tightly knit Knox community?

Perhaps it is paranoia that drives the thoughts about how living on a campus with a three-block radius has negatively impacted us. After all, the impending real world could spur any number of irrational ideas in those of us who are soon to leave this place. Many of us are now realizing that we cannot stay in this place forever (unless we want to, say, become part of the faculty). This realization begs us to answer the question about the impermanence of any future communities we might also be a part of.

There is no doubt that it is disconcerting to remember, looking back at the years spent here, the trivial things we have spent some time on. How many Student Senate meetings it might take to pass one resolution.

It’s easy to get involved in a cause when there are (even just) three other people near you who are also dedicated to that cause. It’s a different thing to produce artwork consistently if you are an art major working on a deadline for a class than to operate on your own schedule. Obviously the positives of this community outweigh the negatives, but it might be a good thing to realize before we get blindsided by entering the world as an individual that it might be rough without a safety net.

This is not to say that Knox has not prepared us for survival. It definitely has. Most of us will come out of this institution with respectable resumes and be quite marketable to prospective employers. But what will we do when we cannot live three doors down from everyone we love? From everyone that wants to discuss our poetry, our honors thesis, our research? While we might not know the answer until we graduate, the best we can do is try and use the strong sense of community at Knox and apply it to anywhere we might venture in the future.