While I was in class the other day, my professor had everyone raise their hands to show if they get their daily news from a newspaper, like The Des Moines Register or USA Today, or from an online news source such as MSNBC. The majority of the class admitted to getting news from an online source, which is something that’s clearly acceptable. With the Internet, checking out what’s going on in the world is more convenient and easy to do with instant updates to breaking news and sports scores.

After class, I began to wonder where my peers here on campus get their news from. Every day, I always see people walking around with newspapers that are provided to students free of charge in Brenton Student Center. Anyone would think that if the newspapers were offered for free, then people would be reading them constantly. Or, at least that’s what I think because by 3 p.m. nearly all the newspapers are gone. So anyone would think that as a campus, we are all well-informed, right?

“In my opinion, our generation in somewhat under-informed,” sophomore Nicole Reynoldson said.

She feels that if our generation were to read the news more, by the time we are adults and in charge, we can grasp and have an understanding of the world.

I would say that I agree with Reynoldson because even though there is a handful of people on campus that are well aware that there’s a rather large world outside of Indianola, at the same time, there are some who don’t realize this reality. I’d definitely say that our generation is more concerned with things that affect them directly rather than things that may affect other people, especially when it comes down to events going on in other countries.

Sophomore Ben Hekton somewhat feels the same way.

“Generally, we’re pretty ignorant when it comes to current events,” Hekton said. “I really don’t see people reading newspapers, and I don’t think as a whole we are (well-informed)”

As a whole, like I said before, there are people on this campus who are well-informed about current events and what’s happening in the world around us, but that’s not all of us. Our generation is a part of the information age, and because of the many advancements in technology within the last 15 years, we are able to get breaking news within seconds of it happening via the Internet and news broadcast. If the campus were to take advantage of these media outlets, then we would be more informed.

We need to realize that one day we’ll be our parents’ age and watching the evening news at 5 p.m. just as our parents do now. So, why not know and care about what is going on in the world now? One day we will be running it, so we should start taking advantage of the newspapers in BSC and all the online websites where news and current events are at our fingertips. Maybe this way we can break the stereotype that all college students care about is beer and parties and show the older generation that we can take care of our country when it is our turn to step up to the plate.