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Printer-Friendly ModeThankful Cards appreciate more than just vacation time
The Vanguard Vision
November 22, 2010 —
Soon, most Cardinals will be heading home to share the Thanksgiving holiday with friends and family and to stimulate the local economy with Black Friday shopping. While it’s easy to appreciate time away from classes and assignments, today’s students definitely have many more blessings celebrate. This week, four Vanguard writers and editors share what they are most thankful for as college students.
We’re thankful for the clubs, groups and organizations on campus that allow anyone to be an active member of our academic community. Many of the groups are noncompetitive: All you have to do is sign up and participate. At SVSU, opportunities compete for students; students don’t compete for opportunities.
We’re thankful for scholarships and financial aid. Without this financial support, many of us currently would not be able to afford college or would be in significantly more debt after graduation. We’re glad for the generosity of our benefactors.
We’re thankful for a time in life to study abroad and try out careers through internship and co-op. As we move into our careers and get older, these chances to take risk and try new experiences become less feasible and less frequent.
We’re thankful to be living in a country where we all enjoy the freedoms of speech, worship and equal access to education. We appreciate learning beside people of different ethnicities, cultures, age groups, economic circumstances and professional backgrounds.
We’re thankful for our modern technology. Our studies would be far more difficult without word processors, digital archives and the Internet. These tools help us to use time most effectively so that we have more time to spend keeping up with other aspects of our lives.
We’re thankful for our campus resource centers: the Writing Center, Math and Physics Resource Center, and the Student Technology Center. Many of the high schools we once attended didn’t have these places for students to receive help, and we’re glad we have them now.
We’re thankful for health insurance. Recent health care reforms allow students to stay on their parents’ health coverage until their 27th birthdays.
At least one of us is thankful that SVSU freshmen can drive their cars on campus.
Finally, we’re thankful for a chance to go home for the holiday. We value the time to reconnect with family and friends who motivate us, the time to remind ourselves of the thing in life we value the most, the time to relax in a comfortable home environment, and the time to share a home-cooked meal. Thanksgiving break is more than time off for holiday vacation and for shopping: Ist’s a chance to reflect on some of the blessings we may have overlooked.