Don't Be Ashamed of Your School: Pick Your Head Up and Have a Little Pride

By Melissa Pinto
News Editor

The author, Melissa Pinto, outside HCC.

Due to a jam-packed Spring 2007 Issue 3 (a record-breaking 32 pages long!), the picture above didn't make it into the print edition, but it was too good to waste...

The full text of Melissa's editorial is repeated below.


I've done it. I know a lot of you have done it. When someone has asked you, “Where do you go to school?" you made a face, shrugged your shoulders, and replied, "Housatonic."

Enough is enough. Pick your head up, and say it with a little pride. "I go to Housatonic, and it's not bad like you think it is."

About two weeks ago I overheard a conversation. Sadly, it was a family member of mine. As I listened in on a conversation between an over- zealous family member and my younger brother, my temperature began to rise. I heard him say, "And don't think you are going to that Housatonic school. You are going to go to a real college."

Never before had I had much feeling on what people thought of where I currently studied…until then.

HCC gets a bad name solely based on ignorance. People assume because we are in downtown Bridgeport that there must be thugs, drugs, and violence roaming the campus. Odds are, if you're silly enough to believe that, you probably haven’t been downtown recently. Growing up in the area, I’m proud to say that the area gets a little better every year. In my opinion HCC's campus has only added value and a better reputation to the respected area. Never has there been a single day in the two years that I've attended HCC that I've been afraid to walk down the street to the deli on my break, or to walk to my car after dark, contrary to popular belief.

Ignorant people also assume because we here at HCC are just a community college, that it's not a "real degree". Like hell it's not. I work just as hard as Joe Shmoe who goes to Quinnipiac. I still pull all-nighters, and write long, outlandish 15-page papers. The difference is, I'm not paying $30,000 a year to do it. I'll pay my small tuition for two years and save my money before I'm forced out the doors and into a high priced university.

By the way, Joe Shmoe is just a number. At UConn or Southern, Mr. Shmoe is known solely based upon his social security number and gets lost in a sea of a hundred faces in his freshman English class. My English teacher knows my name here at HCC. He knows I'm there without a sign-in sheet or having to read roll call, and, to me, that counts for something. Not only am I graded on my written tests, here at HCC teachers have the ability to factor in your eagerness to learn.

On top of all of this, here at HCC I found my inspiration: a teacher. As corny as it may sound, when I came here, I was uncertain of my future and or career, lacking motivation and just going through the motions. One fall day, upon walking into a new classroom, I came across a teacher who would soon change my life and, more importantly, my way of thinking. Because of the student-teacher relationships that HCC prides itself on, I was given the gift of a teacher who cared. Most friends I know who attend large universities were never lucky enough to have their inspiration placed right in front of them.

Recently I have been accepted in a well-known, reputable school in New York City. Not only did I get accepted, I was awarded a large sum of money to attend. The humdinger is, two years ago, this university would have not only slammed their door in my face, but would have had quite the chuckle too!

HCC gave me an outlet to work hard, bring up my grades, and finally make a name for myself. I feel that, in some cases, high school students don't comprehend the severity of "grades" until it's too late. In my opinion, school is an area of life that you aren't able to prosper in until you are ready. HCC gave me a place to finally "be ready" and to erase the times when I was not.

Although starting in the fall I too will become a Joe Shmoe, and probably just a number in a crowd, for two wonderful years, HCC gave me a place to just be me, and that is something worth being proud about.

Wanted! (Click on the image to see a larger version)

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. – A Prolific Author Remembered

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE!



By Brandon T. Bisceglia
Staff Writer

I first chanced upon the works of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. in the fifth grade, when my class read the short story, “Harrison Bergeron.” It was the story of a society that had decided to literally cater to the lowest common denominator in every possible way. Strong people were laden with weights. Intelligent people had buzzers in their ears to periodically interrupt the reasoning process. But one man overcame these shackles, finding that working against them made him more powerful than he could otherwise be. In a world of restraints, he refused to acquiesce.

This tale of freedom was not only uplifting -- it was told with an intriguingly imaginative flair. Soon after reading the story, I began wading through Vonnegut’s other quirky novels: Cat’s Cradle, Galapagos, Timequake, and so on. Each book had a serious poignancy that shone through his amusingly anecdotal style. It kept me looking for more from the talented, if cracked, writer.

The most personal and controversial of his fiction works was Slaughterhouse-Five, which was in part a fictionalized account of Vonnegut’s experiences in Germany during World War II. There, an extremely fortunate event occurred – he was captured by the Germans and became a prisoner of war. This was fortunate because his duties incidentally saved him from annihilation when the Americans firebombed Dresden, a cultural hub with no conceivable military significance beyond being in Germany.

For years, Slaughterhouse-Five was banned from schools and libraries for its gruesome imagery and anti-American sentiments. It inadvertently raised him to the status of counter-culture icon. The catch phrase (oft repeated in the novel), “So it goes,” became timelessly popular in literary circles. Today, the book is required reading in many classrooms.

On April 11, 2007, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. died. He had suffered brain injuries from a fall in his Manhattan home a few weeks prior. He was 84.

The spirit of this irascible man would be impossible to reproduce. In his own time, there were few authors with the same inventive, curiously dark humor. He scribbled pictures of wide-open beavers – both kinds – in his novels. He dubbed Manhattan, “Skyscraper National Park,” because it seemed to him as if New York City had sprouted from the ground. He smoked, calling his habit a, “fairly certain, somewhat dignified, form of slow suicide.”

Though he primarily wrote fiction during the 1960s and 70s, his focus during the last 20 years of his life shifted heavily to non-fiction. In 2000, he taught advanced writing at Smith College, and in November of the same year, was given the title “State Author of New York.” He had, by then, over 20 books in print. He had taught at Harvard, been awarded an MA by the University of Chicago (for Cat’s Cradle’s contribution to cultural anthropology), and acted as President of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. He had adopted his sister’s children when she and her husband had died suddenly. He had been married several times, and had once attempted suicide with alcohol and sleeping pills. There was little the man had not experienced.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was not unfamiliar with death. He had written about it in many ways. On one notable occasion, he wrote a secular requiem. He told a reporter from New York Magazine that he wanted to present something that didn’t require the fear-provoking notions of heaven and hell. Instead, he built it around the idea that, “There’s nothing to fear in the afterlife, so I just had everybody sleep, ‘cause I like sleep.”

What made him a true satirist and an inspiring human was the underpinning optimism he retained within his dark attitude. He claimed that he wanted his epitaph to read: “The only proof he needed of the existence of god was music.”

It is a shame he did not live to see it.

So it goes.

The Inside Story of the Student Senate

The hard working Student Senate Secretary (me) at work.
(Photo by Rebecca Starke)

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE!

By Shanar Fraser
Staff Writer

The Student Senate is a wonderful club to join that teaches all about politics and the procedures that go on in our government. It is made up of a group of students, and what they do is govern the clubs, plan events, and serve as the voice of the students.

To become a senator, all you have to do is have fifty of your fellow students fill their name on a sheet of paper. After that, you turn it into Shante Hanks’ office. Then you go to an executive board meeting, and they put your petition on the agenda for the following Wednesday’s meeting. You go to the Senate meeting, and they give an interview of sorts, then they vote you in or not in. That is the process of becoming a Senator.

After you have served a least a year as a regular Senator, you can be nominated for the executive board. The seats on the executive board are President, Vice President, Treasurer, and Secretary. The other positions that the Senate have is College Senate Representative and Foundation Representative.

I first got to know the Senate as a club rep for the Black Student Union. After about a year, I wanted to join the Senate. Shortly after I joined, their secretary resigned, and they needed a new one.

I nominated myself for that position, but it was on an interim basis until they got a new secretary. That was back in 2005.

Then the spring elections came around, and nobody was running for Secretary, so I nominated myself to be the official secretary. It was in 2006, and I won that election.

Then in 2007 I did not run for anything, but the Secretary once again resigned, and in mid-semester I asked the president if I could fill that vacancy, and he said yes. So once again I became the interim secretary.

Some of the committees that I was on include the Activities Committee and the Finance Committee. I helped to plan the Student Senate Luncheon and Appreciation Day. I also went up to the capital to meet other Senators from other schools.

Some things the Senate could work on are planning some more events for the night students, and discussing stuff in a timely manner.

What the Senate does well is helping out other clubs when they need help, and being there for the students, like when a student needs help with something they come to the Senate.

The Senate is really a great club to be a part of. It gives you some leadership abilities and gets you to the higher levels in the school. Plus it allows you to help your follow students.

So if you do not have anything to do, or if you have some free time on your hands, then the Senate needs you. Stop by the Senate office, which is in C110, to pick up an application.