I have to get a few things off my chest. It has only been two weeks, but already people are starting to piss me off here at Cal State Long Beach. My fellow students seem to have no regard for anyone other than themselves, and it shows. People are rude here on campus. They come to class late, they come to class sick, they are boorish to professors and they are disrespectful to other students, but the list could go on and on. The fact is a lot of people here at CSULB are rude, and they do not seem to care.

There could be many reasons for this. We are a commuter campus, so there is no inherent camaraderie among the student body. We have very few, if any, reasons to hang out on campus. Our sports enthusiasm is lack-luster at best. There is no place on campus for students to just hang out other than the student union. There is no reason to stay on campus. There is no reason to build up relationships with our fellow students because, at the end of the day, almost all of us go home.

Maybe that is why almost no one gives a rat’s ass about anyone else here on campus.

Take, for example, the people who come late to class. Now I know there are always legitimate reasons for being late. There was an accident on the freeway, maybe you had car trouble or a family emergency, or some other significant thing came up that caused you to be late to class. But all too often people just oversleep, leave too late or spend time finishing up some assignment they were supposed to have started weeks, if not months, ago. They come in and disrupt the class, shuffle noisily to their seat and ruffle through their backpacks before getting settled. All the while, everyone else is trying to politely ignore them while still paying attention to the professor. It is hard enough to take notes and participate in class, especially a difficult one, without the added distraction of someone who couldn’t get their act together and get to class on time. Or they could just do us all a favor not come at all.

But the late student isn’t the only character in the rogues gallery of rude students. There is also the sick student. You know the kind. They will sit there in class and hack up a lung, spreading their infectious pestilence across the classroom. Lord help you if you happen to be sitting next to or in front of the contaminated one. You are almost always in his or her direct line of fire when they spew their diseased spittle from their gaping craws. Sometimes you encounter the polite sicky, the one who courteously excuses themselves to get a drink of water to help suppress their cough. This is all well and good, except inevitably this person will excuse himself or herself at least a dozen times before class is over, which means, you guessed it, more distractions for the rest of the class. Hey sick guy. Yeah you, with the red face, slight fever and drool hanging from your lip, do us both a favor and stay home so you can get better and not infect me in the process.

Another thing I love is when someone will beg and plead with a professor to let them into a class, and once they get in, they stop coming until there is a paper due or a test to take. I know this happens all the time, but just because it is the norm does not mean it is right or acceptable.

I remember this happening in at least two of my classes last semester. One girl claimed she was a senior and needed the class to graduate, so like most professors, this one let her add the class. The very next day the girl was absent. She was absent the day after that, and the day after that. She was absent every day up until the first midterm. How is that for respect? The professor graciously allowed her into the class and the girl repaid her kindness by skipping class every day except test days. That is just incredible.

If respect isn’t dead, it is in desperate need of a vital transplant of some kind because it is hanging by a thread. There is never an excuse to be rude. Never. The world does not revolve around you and your friends, so stop thinking it does. People need to stop messing around and start taking school seriously. It is no wonder the once “four-year-schools” have become more “five-to-seven-year-schools.” When people don’t take things seriously nothing gets accomplished. You are all paying for this education in some way or another. Would you treat any other investment the way you treat your schooling? I really hope not.