Oct. 07, 2009 A Little More Time, a Little Less Judgement
by Andrea Coulombe

Home sweet home. A phrase that many students haven’t said since the school year began. We live our new lives here at Western, with little or no thought to the life that is still ongoing in our home city. Instead we think about what we will be eating for dinner tomorrow, or where we will be partying on Friday night. We left behind our friends and family, in pursuit of our own hopes and dreams.

We come here with high expectations of meeting great friends and learning more about life than ever before. In fact, university is the site of this exactly. Since everyone has the same mindset of making new friends, having a great time and learning all about the world around us, it makes it easy to find others who want this too.

In the atmosphere of residences, classrooms and lecture halls, it is easy to judge a person based on how they are dressed, which classes they are taking, or which residence they live in. Judgement is a dangerous tool. It is very hard, if not impossible to look at someone and not judge the type of person that they are based upon their clothing, or race. A person who habitually judges others could find themselves with very few friends, and very few life experiences. All people have the potential to change your life in some way, whether it is in a small way or a large way. It is easy these days to justify whether or not you want someone in your life based upon the way they look, but in reality there is no justification for this. No person can truly know another person after a quick passing by on the street, or an hour tutorial group. In order to find these true friends that we are all searching for, we need more time and less judgment.