Complaint is the granny of change

Dear readers,

I am really thankful for my close friends who have patiently put up with my existence at Tufts since August 2014. Besides my rapturous sense of humor and my profuse sarcasm, which are hard not to love, I am a complainer. Those who know me well can testify to that. Sometimes, I am sorry for whining too much. Other times, I feel rather gifted for having such oversensitivity and overreaction to the daily inconveniences. I am so eager to report the wrongs, and I remain so unsettled until they are made right. I like ticking those boxes that grade my experience on shopping sites, filling out course evaluation and typing down extensive constructive criticisms on survey forms. In my opinion, the benefit derived from the resulted improvement, or even from the possibility of change alone, outweighs the cost of giving feedback with regards to the amount of time and effort put in.

As the Executive Op-Ed Editor at the Tufts Daily, a member of the Tufts community, a student who falls so in love with this campus and a “gifted” bellyacher, I want to make the Opinion section a more active and effective agent of change. This requires a lot of “complaints”, not only from the editorial board but also from everyone who is reading this letter. If you think that on-campus printing prices are egregious or just right, write about it. If you believe that tuition has gone too high, but campus janitorial staff or dining hall workers are not treated well enough, we want to hear about it. If you think you experience any forms of exclusion, if you know of certain groups on campus facing discrimination, write to us and let us know. Even if you take issue with the lack of power outlets in Carm, tell us. 

Just as Necessity is the mother of Invention and Inconvenience is the father of Innovation, Complaint is the granny of Change. Even complaint at some point rises to become something more noble. I would like to urge you neither to grow accustomed to the status quo at Tufts nor be content with the drawbacks that can be avoided. After all, we pay six-figured tuition fee for our entire college experience; we’d better make it worth the money.

The Opinion section wants to be a more interactive platform for all of our readers because the issues that are getting on your nerves also exasperate us. Therefore, we would like to receive your commentaries, your responses to our articles, complaints or even compliments (because why not) in the forms of Letters, Op-Ed contributions or just casually composed e-mails. You can write to us at tuftsdailyoped@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing more from you. Please help us help you make a lasting impact on this campus.

 

Sincerely,

Hannah Hoang

Executive Op-Ed Editor