Get off Atlanta and Get to Know Your New School

Dear President Peterson,
I am glad to hear that you are enjoying your new hometown and find it amply recommendable to all those who hold you in high esteem. You are new in town, so I assume that your letter was meant to help us broaden our horizons and become more well rounded people.

Unfortunately, you might want to spend some time getting to know your real new home, the four hundred acres situated primarily between North Avenue and 10th Street. The Georgia Institute of Technology is a community unto itself out of necessity. This necessity is the maintenance of it's pristine reputation as the fourth best engineering school in the country. The goal of maintaining the school's status leads to various financial necessities of its students, which subsequently leads to the necessity to spend most of our time on campus.

The biggest necessities for students at Tech are paying and staying here. Almost anyone who gets in right out of high school has earned the HOPE Scholarship, as well as other awards. In order to keep the GPAs necessary to keep the funding, we must keep studying. There's a saying that goes "GT: Where your best hasn't been good enough since 1885." You must understand how valid this assertion is at a school where some of the best and brightest in the state (and world) are averaging a 2.8 gpa. Many students, if they do not keep their scholarships, are doomed to a life of asking, "Would you like fries with that?"

There are two other major monetary necessities for students at GT. The first one is the simple fact that we are college students, poor by default. After paying for everything through the Bursar's Office and to Auxiliary Services (who loves [to drain money from] students!) for everything from food to laundry to books, we don't have $30 a week to go see shows or games and (as stated above) don't have the time to do free things in Atlanta like go to the park or do community service.

The second thing is the fact that we are kind of in a recession right now, and it's more practical to use the resources on campus (CRC, Burger Bowl, the library's movie selection) that we have already paid for.

It is also notably ironic that you encourage us to expand our horizons (and be subsequently generous with our pocketbooks) off campus while at the same time Atlanta is resisted every time it tries to come onto Tech property.

The popular eatery Wingnuts, located under the North Avenue Appartments, is being forced out in favor of a new dining hall. The official reason behind this is because there is a need for more dining services since a certain percentage of residents subscribe to a meal plan. However, when I consider how many upperclassman I see at (or even the number of freshmen who enjoy the cuisine of) nearby Brittan, I cannot find this notion any more real than the Heene Balloon Incident. Wingnuts, on the other hand, is a respectable establishment that served good food and cuts into Tech's profits.

Wingnuts is not the only victim of Tech's island policy. The homeless of Atlanta are only rarely seen at the edges of campus, although we are pushed and shoved into doing community service one day a year or through work-study. While this may be to keep the dangerous ones away from students, it is also doing a these same students a disservice. Many of us have spent sheltered lives in suburbia, protected from reality by our parents. The homeless presence not only gives the homeless a place to sleep or get food, but gives the students a reason to be thankful and to put life into perspective. For many people, the world is the opposite of the land of plenty students are promised will be theirs upon graduation.

Unfortunately, it seems like Georgia Tech is selective about the cultural experience it allows its students to have. We are expected to be well rounded when we are working ourselves to death training for a trade and trying to keep it on someone else's dollar. At the same time, whenever the city tries to come to us it is scraped if it doesn't fit the liking of the Institute. Dr. Peterson, I know you are new here and I respect your idealism and enthusiasm, but please remember where you are. Remember that ideals and reality seldom coincide on the same front.

Yours in White and Gold,
Virginia Dobson