Life in the Bubble

If you’re a student at this University, chances are you will be familiar with the term “the University Bubble”. Although you do become more independent and have more freedom in university, life as an undergrad is far from life in the real world.

Sometimes you get so caught up in partying, clubbing, studying and classes that you tend to forget about the world around you. That's inevitable up to a point, but it's too easy to take it to an extreme, so that for weeks at a time you forget that there are living beings at all outside the University. Being downtown in a big city would remind you about the rest of the world, at least as compared with life here; it's a self-contained campus quite a distance from anywhere else especially for students without a car, which includes me and most of my friends. The Bubble gets to surround you and consume you before you realize that anything is happening. Then it can be too late: nothing outside your immediate life seems to have any interest or any meaning. As I write this, a recession is in full swing, there are crowds in the street in a volatile and dangerous part of the world, and there's a ship carrying an apparently nuclear cargo to a country embargoed by the UN. A war could start this afternoon, and many of my friends have no idea of any of this; they would ignore you if you tried to tell them about it. It doesn't take much thinking to realize that this isolation is not a good thing.

For some, the program you're in can contribute to the Bubble effect. My own program is an example, in the Sciences. It's all very specialized, esoteric, and all-consuming, and nothing in our daily grind has anything at all immediately to do with the world outside the lecture hall and the labs.

So how to keep at least part of yourself outside the Bubble: even doing simple stuff like reading the newspaper regularly or listening to the news on the radio will keep you informed of important events in the rest of the world. If that seems to lose its interest and importance, you're on a downhill slide into the Bubble. (Mixed metaphors anyone?)

The University itself has lots of activities that have an outside focus. You might not think so, but as young adults we can change the future for the better, and this change can begin by what we do in university. Even getting involved in organizing or participating in a fundraiser such as a marathon, a relay, or a carwash or a barbecue for charity can broaden your Bubble-restricted vision -- especially if you get involved in the organization and get some idea of what the fund-raiser is for. To date, this University's freshman efforts have raised over two million dollars for local causes. It goes to show how much goodness can be accomplished when we all band together.

For a broader perspective, I joined Unicef and the Cancer Society this year so I could help other communities and people. Your commitment can change peoples’ lives.

You can give your summers an outside focus too, even if you circumstances are like mine, and you have no choice to stay on campus because home is too far away or you don't have anywhere at all to go to. You've paid for your room for the whole year too. This summer, I'll be working at the medical research lab on campus.

So beware of the insidious Bubble. If you feel it coming on to you, brainstorm, investigate possibilities for remedial activities, and take action!