I am a senior at East Lansing High school. I got up Friday morning and stumbled upon Sarah Emery’s column (“Don’t cry over spilled mocha latte with whipped cream,” SN 9/22) and my first thought was, “Why hasn’t anyone said anything before now?”

Every year I watch the crowds of college students invade the town, take over the coffee shops, bars, bookstores and restaurants of our streets only to cause havoc in the world I know. It’s hard to find one in the masses with the view as defined and intelligent as Emery’s. I agree completely with everything she said in her article.

I have an older sister who is a sophomore at the University of Indiana, scraping her money to get along through the year. When I go down to visit, I don’t see kids walking around on cell phones, with pagers and many other useless accessories that I have seen around campus this year. I also think that it has gotten out of hand. I have considered attending MSU my whole life, and I have always lived here so it is kind of hard not to notice it. On the other hand, I am turned off not by the education, or even the surroundings, but by the people that have come to inhabit them. MSU has sadly turned into one of the known “party schools,” which is very, very sad. It’s also hard not to notice when I come out of school and see beer cans and other stuff thrown about the streets right in front of our high school.

The budget some students learn to live on is tight, but a lot of them have never seen a budget. I have had a steady job since I was 16 and I am already concerned about what I am going to do going into college - with my parents not carrying most of the weight. Basically, I don’t know what else to say except for that in the high hopes that college would be a new place, with new people and a new social standard, it’s begun sadly to look just like high school all over again. I am very glad that Emery wrote that column, and I hope others have read and appreciated it too.

Carol Haas
East Lansing resident