We are the idealists, the dreamers, the educated, underrepresented and ignored. We represent the majority and the minorities, the malleable future of our nation—yet we allow ourselves to be voiceless.

Time and time again, events like the Ford Institute’s “Rock the Vote” and Awaken’s “Social Justice Open Mic” go unattended.

In America, our age bracket represents 33 percent of the population, enough to make change happen. Events like these are an opportunity to educate ourselves about issues and voice our opinions, but instead we allow ourselves to be apathetic.

Every day, I hear how someone hates Baldwin food, how Residential Life doesn’t offer enough options or how the college administration isn’t paying attention. Why is it that everyone has a voice of objection but no voice of action? Albion College is a service industry and was established to provide us with an education. Take advantage of it.

We need to attend our classes and participate, push the discussion to its limit, attend events like “Focus the Nation” and go to see academic speakers, poets, religious leaders and scientists—especially those outside our own areas of study. If nothing else, we’ll be earning the right and the knowledge required to have something to say.

And for those of you who are rolling your eyes and thinking that these events don’t do any good, I challenge you to enter a conversation that turns into more than dialogue. If someone says the administration isn’t paying attention to them, that they’ve forgotten that without us they wouldn’t have a job—make them listen.

Sydney J. Harris wrote: “We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice.”