Popular belief holds that your average RPI student is a nerd, straight out of that movie with Anthony Edwards and that "Booger" guy, but with less belching ... or more, if you live on an all-guys floor in one of the freshman dorms. Computers mean everything to us. Quake III is an acceptable substitute for breakfast—or lunch, or dinner, come to think of it. Oh, we’re also male, treat women like objects and not like people, and we’d pull a muscle even thinking about exercising.

If only I was making this up. But RPI people think this about RPI people. This is the myth. This is "average." But of course, no one cares about this image or would ever want to change it, because your average RPI student is also wholly apathetic—indeed, even actively apathetic, if such a thing were possible. We exert ourselves to ensure we don’t care.

Now I ask you: Do you think you’re an average RPI student?

"Oh no," you’re thinking. "Another column in The Poly about getting involved or joining student government or some stupid thing like that."

Wrong.

Take a look around. I used to believe that the ’Tute Screw was turned by evil administrators and trustees who were trying to squeeze money from our veins if they could. It’s not. The holders of the screwdriver are the students. Each twist of the screw comes every time someone says, simply, "I don’t care."

The line must be drawn here. To all of you who answered my earlier question with a resounding "No, I’m not average," I call on you to stand here with me and fight the apathy plague. Mr. Greco, Mr. Johnson, you’ve got columns in this paper. Use them while you still can. Denounce apathy in all its forms and use your words to lift up the students around campus who are making a difference. Senators, stop bemoaning the ails of student government. Look around you and see a student body that desperately needs effective leadership. Leaders of the fraternities and sororities, yours was a greek system that once produced the most respected men and women on campus. It can be that way again. Students, your work here for this school impacts more lives than you or the rest of us even realize. If I could, I would recognize each of you by name, but instead all I can do is thank you collectively and urge you to press on.

It is not the average student who is apathetic. It is the myth that we ourselves perpetuate, from the video gamers to the athletes to the very echelons of student leadership. We have allowed ourselves to be defeated by fear of no one caring, and by our own selfish pride that then no one would be there to congratulate us when we finished.