by jmccoy3 on February 18, 2022
Opinion
As a Catholic institution, Providence College does a phenomenal job providing Mass to its students. In their tours of PC, nearly all members of Friars Club or Admission Ambassadors discuss the Mass options for students, focusing on one specifically: the 10 p.m. mass. While this service gets an abundance of attention and hype at the College, it is inferior to the 7 p.m. Mass.
The 10 p.m. Mass is often completely filled with students. To get enough seats for yourself and your friends, you need to get to the chapel relatively early. It tends to get so packed because the Mass is such a production. The music, performed by some of PC’s best singers and musicians, is unique to the service and gives a more contemporary alternative to a traditional Catholic Mass. While this format can be refreshing, it likens the service to more of a spectacle than an actual Mass. The environment of it all, tied in with getting out at 11 p.m., gives people the feeling of attending a packed, late-night concert. The 7 p.m. Mass, on the other hand, is at a reasonable time and gives people the chance to enjoy a traditional Catholic Mass, and without being on top of one another.
The 10 p.m. Mass has a great reputation, but is it really all that? The 7 p.m. Mass offers a standard service and gives one the chance to enjoy it with one’s friends in a comfortable setting. While one may be unique, the other is more preferable if a person is really trying to just enjoy Mass.
Walking to the Slavin student center from Phillips Memorial Library takes approximately three minutes. Most of that time, although so brief, is spent on one’s phone.
When walking alone from a residence hall on lower campus to the science building, the task becomes even more daunting. There seems to be an unwritten script for students to quell their feelings of discomfort walking alone by going on their phones.
Students hardly ever walk alone with their head up or ears unplugged. While understandable when one is trying to make one’s walks more enjoyable, often there is a sense of urgency to constantly fill any sort of empty space, conversation, or moment.
This habit has become part of almost everyone’s daily life and is incredibly detrimental. In life, there are supposed to be moments of silence, of respite, of repose. Life should not just be a huge jumble of distractions and screens.
Our campus yearns to be appreciated. People are meant to be acknowledged and smiled at. Humanity finds its place in nature by looking up every once and a while and putting down one’s phone.
Not only do people lose out on opportunities to be silent, but also to learn something. By looking for the details on our campus and in others’ faces, students, professors, administrators, and coaches can gain a perspective on life that will impact them far more than anything on their iPhone.
Of course, there are moments during one’s walk that are perfect for a phone call to one’s mother and should be cherished, but aside from a call or genuine human interaction, it simply makes no sense to pass up on the opportunity to look around and smell the roses.
Moreover, everyone can and should try to embrace the discomfort of being alone when walking around campus and take in life for its raw and pure nature.
For the last couple of months, one of the most popular sounds on TikTok has been “Material Girl” by Saucy Santana. Many users have been quoting the sound to brag about their poor spending habits while actually having little-to-no money in their bank accounts. While it is fun to listen to, and can be entertaining to pretend everyone can live out their “Blair Waldorf” dreams, most expenses are unnecessary and give insight into how wrapped up young women have become in material items. Some girls will brag that they cannot stop buying expensive oat milk lattes or constantly have packages from Amazon arriving at their houses. However, spending hundreds of dollars on nails that last two weeks or fast fashion is merely short-term gratification, and in the long term, women will likely regret spending money on these items because many college students do not have steady incomes and either work few hours at minimum wage jobs or live off the money their parents put in their bank accounts.
While these TikTok videos are jokes and are often intended to merely poke fun, it is concerning that the trend seems to be encouraging young women to buy useless items that they do not need.. To combat this, it would be wiser for college-aged girls to begin to recognize their toxic spending habits now before it leads to dangerous adult behaviors that could affect one’s credit score or ability to save money. For example, instead of instantly buying something or constantly “treating yourself,” try to sit on online orders for longer and recognize that the things you want are probably not needed. There is already a stigma that young women do not know the value of money—prove everyone wrong.