The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines serendipity as “luck that takes the form of finding valuable or pleasant things that are not looked for”. The library is a place of serendipity and I found it there last week.

However, at most college campuses it is been turned to a Wi-Fi hotspot and students only stop there because of a class assignment. Whatever happened to spying a red cover out of the corner of your eye and walking over to discover a book by the name of the “Catcher in the Rye” that was in that stack?

You would think with the abundance of electives serendipity will be natural here at Park. When students say, “I am only taking that class to fulfill an elective or I am only taking that class to get those credits done,” you will immediately discover certain things about the speaker. You can almost hear the tortures in their voice. They are no longer electives.

Electives as in choosing them. I always wonder when somebody asks if a certain elective is easy. I think it is with elective classes that you should be taking a risk. Not only can you select something interesting but you also have the option of choosing something challenging.

Instead what I hear is college kids wanting to get the classes they can skate through easily.

I took a natural disasters course once. It wasn’t in my major. But, I can tell you it was eye opening. No, I didn’t run away to join the Red Cross. No, I just feel that every time I read the news I have a deeper understanding of what is going on and I even forage for more books on my own just because the course catalog said natural disasters. The immediate thing

I thought of before I took the course was earthquakes, cool, sign me up.
With the death of serendipity, curiosity suffers a natural death.Every part of the college experience is now charted and laid out. Even roommates are now chosen even before you have stepped on campus.

Apparently people want to be matched with their besties. It is even better if those besties turn to be from their high school. There is no longer the accident of being matched with an international student.

There is no longer the chance of a pot smoking California surfer bum sharing a room with a hallelujah praising Midwesterner. Now all the surfer bums are all huddled in the same quad.

We all have become excellent sheep in following algorithms across the digital landscape. But now we even follow them across the physical landscape. GPS has totally killed the romance of getting lost in a city the first few months after you have moved in. People are so afraid of getting lost that they have forgotten the sense of adventure and exploration that comes with getting lost.