Sophomore year is the lost year in college. We’re no longer new and special like the freshmen, we’re not going abroad and getting internships like the juniors, and we’re not graduating like the seniors. Sophomores are just a bunch of drifting “wise fools,” and everyone knows it. Tim Snyder, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, endeavored to give a purpose to our lives with the first of hopefully many Sophomore Symposiums. The symposium, which took place Sept. 10 in the Quick Center, was structured as an informal panel between students and a combination of administrators and professors. Up until this point we’ve had our lives lived for us and our actions determined by any number of variables other than ourselves, so it’s easy to see how our generation has become so indifferent. We don’t know how to live; we don’t know how to be passionate about our own lives. Sometimes it’s hard to even take an interest in our own lives. This symposium, and other events like it, is exactly what Fairfield students need, regardless of grade. In a school often checkered with student and faculty apathy, it’s nice to know that the administration is taking new steps to invigorate us. During the symposium Fr. Regan told us that now is the time to start living our lives instead of passively observing it, and although the question session that followed the speeches was predictably tentative, I believe we sophomores are on the road to recovery from our lethargy. The feedback I’ve heard from the symposium has almost all been favorable however, so hopefully the purpose of the symposium has been fulfilled. It still remains to be seen if these words will inspire us, though. It’s been a week since the symposium and in that time I wonder how many sophomores have actually taken the panel’s advice and gone to New York, or scheduled a time to really talk to their advisor, or even just lived their lives with any kind of passion. In any case, this year we have no excuse for our apathy, the faculty has done their part. Now the ball is in our court and we all need to make a decision as to whether we will let this symposium inspire us. Sophomore year may still never be defined as a year of any singular perks, but at least we know that we’re not forgotten after freshman year; we’re taken seriously. And we still can’t help but be “wise fools” for the rest of this year, but at least now we can make the choice to stop drifting and let the symposium’s message resonate through this year, the next two years, and the rest of our lives.
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