Sociology Commons^™

You Only Remember Your Tragedies, Anonymous

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I am tired. I am tired of going to class and listening to my professor’s ignore my history. I am tired of going to office hours and them telling me that I am too biased to conduct research on the genocide of the country my family is from. I am tired of the way people give me these looks of pity whenever I tell them what happened to my family. I am tired of not being able to talk to anyone about this because I just feel like I’m spewing absolute nonsense because it feels like no one believes me. …

Dear Society, Anonymous

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“I can not wait to study abroad” multiple friends tell me

All I do is shake my head and reply “mhm I can not wait either”

I lied to them

I can not go out of the country, I can not explore the world

I am stuck in one place

This place is known as the United States of America that one day they said will bring the American Dream for my family

I wake up each day and I live in a world of fear, mistrust, and silence..." [excerpt]

Living...In Fear, Anonymous

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“What do you fear?”

“What is your weakness?”

Every time I get asked these questions, whether it’s by interviewers or friends, I dread every moment of it.

How can I possibly put into words the fear I live with every single day of my life?

How can I put into words the pain I feel inside of me to help you understand?

My parents have raised me to be the strong independent woman that I am.

They have taught me to discipline myself and always work 10x harder than everyone else.

They have warned me from a very early age …

I Am, Anonymous

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Hearing undocumented I want it to be for means of empowerment,
I am tired of the pity look, of the silence, of hesitation, of the thick air and the tension
Whenever I let people in.
When I let people in, I expect respect as a human being,
And not as a saving cause.
The last thing I ask is for reassurance or comfort
I had been undocumented for the last eleven years
Eleven years that I have internalized a distorted false narrative of who I am [excerpt]

Overworked. Underpaid., Lexus P. Davis

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I am two people right now.

Split between a constant feeling of having a deep pit in your stomach from fear of not having finished something. Until that pit is anxiousness and for a second you have to take a few deep breaths because you know yourself.

“Shit, I forgot to eat.”

And the anxious feeling is gone because you forgot something as little as eating.

My eyes are on fire. I rub them and take another sip of coffee. I heard my friends talking about how they took Adderall to finish their papers. I was desperate and so I …

Cheating The Textbook System, Hana Huskic

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The price of my German textbook is equal to three months of rent with utilities back home. My books for Introduction to Cultural Anthropology equal the cost of feeding my family for a whole month. But these aren’t news. American Enterprise Institute reports that the college textbook prices “are 812 percent higher than they were a little more than three decades ago.”

Some students came to Gettysburg aware of costs, so they moved into first year dorms armed with Amazon Prime memberships and accounts on sites for renting textbooks. Some looked for classes that offer cheaper (or no) textbooks in …

The First Year Frat Experience, Anonymous

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It was September 14th and my three weeks were up. I had told myself I had three weeks to make friends. Three weeks before Greek life would dominate the social scene. Publicly, I decried the three week rule, writing it off as dumb or lame. Privately, a part of me wished it could last forever. That night, while my floor pregamed in their rooms, I stayed in mine. I spent a long night alone, listening to the music blasting from dorm rooms and down the streets. I decided to shut the lights off because I didn’t want the world to …

When You Love Physics, But Physics Doesn't Love You, Anna K. Perry

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I am a physics major. Or at least, I was. My class year was an average-sized group of majors; mostly cis men, mostly people I do not feel comfortable around. Jokes straight out of a Big Bang script were constantly being cracked; and though I tried to join in on the fun, I never seemed welcome in the conversation. I could act exactly like my male classmates, but something about my voice, my body, the way I carried myself, was not enough for them to accept me into the boys’ club. If I tried to be my authentic self rather …

This Is How You Lose Me, Anna Cincotta

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I liked the intimate setting of the class at first. The silence before the professor walked in. The cramped room. It always smelled like citrus cleaning products. Some hair gel mixed in there, too.

There was peanut butter stuck on the roof of my mouth — from my sandwich at lunch — when he walked in that day, throwing a stack of Junot Díaz’s short story, “Alma,” onto the center of the shared table.

I liked Junot Díaz’s writing. Loved it, actually. The way he captures pain and molds stories by weaving together the language of diary entries …

Value Is Subjective And Other Fallacies In Economics, Anonymous

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“Before I hand back your exams, let’s review the overall performance of the class. Listed here are the median and mean scores. You can also see the grades of five highest scores on exam…”

I sat anxiously in my chair as my economics professor shared class statistics before finally handing back our tests.

After he distributed them to a number of students, they mingled at the front the room, speculating who earned the top scores.

“Dude, who do you think got the 101?”

“I bet it was *David?”

“Or maybe Mike? He’s always answering questions correctly.”

“Could be. But I …

Distancing Strategies, Exclusive Clusters And Other Ironies Of My American Peers, Mai Trinh

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Being able to study abroad is a huge privilege. I am very lucky to have been given that privilege twice. I was accepted to Gettysburg College two and a half years ago, and studied abroad in the United States. Now, I am studying abroad again in Copenhagen, Denmark with a program that connects many colleges and universities in the US. It has been a month now and I am having a good time.

But my first few weeks in Copenhagen were not the same as my first few weeks in Gettysburg. Strangely enough, it was much more uncomfortable and harder …

Fearless Friday: Anna Perry, Anna K. Perry

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This week, Surge is recognizing Anna Perry ’21. Anna is a physics major with minors in philosophy and peace and justice studies. They work for the Center for Religious and Spiritual Life, complete research in the physics and philosophy departments, work with the Women’s and LGBTQ+ Resource Center, and are a DJ for Voice of a Generation radio show. [excerpt]

More Than Birds And Bees, Katie O. Estell

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Conversations about sex start as early as middle school, with preteens learning about “the birds and the bees,” sexually transmitted infections, and (hopefully) contraception and safe sex. These conversations continue into high school sex education, which has proven to be crucial in decreasing rates of unwanted pregnancies and STI’s. But something important is missing. These programs never mention, and certainly don’t include, LGBT/Q people. LGBT/Q teens are not taught how to have sex, and how to have safe sex. This leaves us to explore our sexuality on our own terms, which is both awkward and dangerous. If you’re a heterosexually …

Speaking Out, Mariam J. Martinez

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Why can we not take action now? I asked myself this question when, as a program coordinator for the Women’s Center I decided to take part in the Vagina Monologues because I wanted to change them- monologues that are centered on the experiences of white, upper-class cis-gender women. [excerpt]

The Rapid Evolution Of Queer Language, Elijah Cormier

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**This essay contains terminology that may be considered offensive to some. Names have been changed to protect identities.

“You remember Kayla?”

“Kayla Riddle?”

“Yeah. You know she’s a boy now?”

“Oh no shit! Not surprised, kinda saw that one coming.”

As I sit with a high school friend on back porch of her trailer, I quickly realize that most of my middle-class, leftist/liberal friends would jump on how we phrase Kai’s coming out. But sitting here, helping Amber figure out how much dope she’d need to sling to make rent this month, calling out mildly transphobic language isn’t a priority. …