A group of droopy looking seniors are sitting around the living room discussing a word they picked up from underclassmen. The conversation goes something like this “Beatles, what is it?” “Whoever heard of a Beatle?” “It’s a singing group from England!” “What do they sing?”
These students are obviously members of a n out-group. The question may arise as to how they found themselves on the outside. The answer lies in a progress which took four years. When these students entered college, they knew the latest styles,songs, dances, and slang. For two years they spent every “noisy hour” practicing the sharpest dances, then, suddenly they were on the outer edge of college life.”
What happens to the student on the outside? She is no longer able to appreciate the long fraternity parties or the purchase collegian leaves her with a void that must be filled. When she does not recognize the hit record which floats urgency to replace this sense of separateness with something more meaningful.
What is this separateness which descends on an upperclassman? It is a loneliness which is called in the Salem College Catalogue an “inevitable solitude” The beginning of awareness of this inevitable solitude is the final process of formal education.
The freshman is overwhelmed with the multitudes who wish to help her; the senior is frightened by the reality of her own aloneness. She realizes that all the Beatle records she can listen to will not give meaning to a life which does try to be significant.
We agree with the statement in the catalogue that it is not enough for higher education “to equip people to help improve the society for which they are a part, but that it must also prepare them for their own inevitable solitude”
The tragedy of the process from multitude to solitude is that so few students are equipped for the transition.
