Welcome back to Colorado Mesa University, depending, of course, on whether you are returning to CMU or are one of the deer-in-the-headlights-looking freshmen walking around on campus.
We at The Criterion want to greet you and introduce you to us, our editorials and give you our take on life as a CMU student.
For those who still have a bad taste in their mouth from “CMU is boring,” the opening editorial from last year, you needn’t flex your rage filled fingers before typing furious comments.
Before we go further, however, it is important to give a brief rundown of how the paper works.
We have sections: News, Art and Life, Sports and Opinions. It’s necessary to understand that each of these works differently. News has facts, Art and Life has features, Opinions has, wait for it, opinions and Sports has all of the above.
It may seem silly to point that out, but considering the high level of complaints last year that opinion pieces contained bias, which is absolutely necessary for such articles, we deemed it an important distinction.
If you don’t like an opinion piece, you are still welcome to complain. We just ask that you refrain from attacking its validity as a news piece. Because we didn’t put it in the news section.
Editorials, like this one, are opinion pieces from the editorial staff. As such, they don’t typically have a singular author because we all have the opportunity to have input. If you don’t like the opinion represented in our editorials, that’s fine. We’d actually like to hear about it and know what your complaint is.
However, because it represents all of us, there will never be an author listed. That’s just the way it is. We’re not hiding. In fact, there is a list of all the editors in our paper, so you can clearly see everyone implicated as an author.
Now that we’ve covered the basics, it’s time to get down to brass tacks, as the old saying goes. Some students love CMU, some students love to hate CMU and some students are completely neutral and generally don’t give a rip about anything other than getting their diploma, one that has, we hope, been proofread for typos.
The fact of the matter is that any one person’s experience here is dictated almost entirely by them. Those who have a bad experience probably just have a bad attitude. Those who have a good experience are typically the kind of people who enjoy making the most out of things.
Those who just want properly spelled diplomas may have a lot going on in their lives. Or they may be boring.
CMU does, however, go out of its way to give students all they need to have a good college experience. There are many programs, clubs and organizations that students can get involved with to either engage in recreation or gain real-world experience for their path of study.
There are activities and fairs. There is a concert every year and sometimes it’s worth attending. Other times it’s Lil’ Yachty. That’s a joke. Don’t get too angry.
Program Activities Council worked really hard to get Lil’ Yachty on our campus. Congrats PAC, it was an amazing turnout.
The theatre department puts on productions that are worth attending. “1776,” an all female cast, will be performed the end of September to the beginning of October. “Reefer Madness” will be in March.
Plus, all the sporting events that we really encourage CMU students to attend: football, volleyball, soccer and that’s just some of the fall sports.
Did you know we have a women’s wrestling team and it’s not a club sport? Yeah we think that’s pretty cool too.
The point is that there are as many opportunities for a student to have as good an experience as they wish to capitalize upon. Or they can sit around and complain. We recommend against the latter.
