Over my time at Eastern, I haven’t been able to help but notice that we are forming a campus bubble cut off from the rest of the world that really isn’t healthy for us.

An alarming number of major world events have gone unnoticed for days on our campus.

Last year I remember reading about a shooting at Fort Hood where 16 people were injured and another four killed, only to find when I mentioned it to people that they had no idea it had ever even happened. Even reactions to The Ukraine being invaded seemed to hit our campus a bit later than would be expected.

I understand that when students finally finish their homework or get back from their other tiring activities, often times the last thing they want to read or watch is the news.

However, the same could probably be said for every other American who has a full-time job or is a stay-at-home mom or what-have-you but they still are much more aware than we are.

It’s not like people aren’t reading any news at all anymore. People know about Kim Kardashian’s photo shoot or what happened at the Oscar’s almost immediately, even if they didn’t find out first hand from watching or reading about it. Even stories like the one about a car getting smashed in between two tractor-trailers and surviving goes viral.   

However, it seems more political stories or ones that matter more to the rest of the world than to ourselves directly seem to get pushed to the side of our thoughts, even though in the grand scheme of things they might be more urgent or pressing.

We live on a campus or even just in a college world that is devoid of this sort of information. Occasionally a professor might mention a current event in a classroom setting but aside from that we are bombarded more with useless information than information that is necessary for us to becoming knowledgeable global citizens.

There’s a McDonald’s by my house back home that has television screens in the eating area and is consistently playing news channels for patrons to watch on mute while they eat.

Our campus dining halls, however, force us to be subjected to MTVU 24/7, except of course when the Super Bowl is on. I find it depressing that someone who sweeps up my local McDonald’s for a living is exposed to more relevant news stories than my fellow students and I who are attending and mostly living in an institution dedicated to higher learning.

Rectifying our lack of awareness needs to happen on an individual basis as well as community one. We each need to strive to be more in the known personally, and we should be encouraging each other to do so and creating an environment that is conducive for these actions.

Kaycie Brauer is a senior English  major. She can be reached at denopinions@gmail.com.