The Matter of Attitude

I visited my undergraduate school while scavenging for letters of recommendation about a week ago. While walking between buildings I found I had a particular bounce to my step. Like many places which ring familiarity I felt comfortable and rather pleasant. I thought this might be because I was at my old stomping ground and I was happy to be "home", but the more I looked around the more I realized that it wasn't so much that I was home, it was that the students and the faculty were so much happier than any university I have visited since attending this one.

The school I’m at now shares the same characteristics and demographics as my former school. Many if not most students come from families of the lower to middle income bracket and both schools reside in or near cities which struggle with mass unemployment due to these cities relying too much on the auto industry to sustain their economy. The significant difference between these schools is that one is considered a commuter school while the other has a healthy amount of commuters but has several thousand students residing on campus as well. I notice day in and day out that the students at the university I attend now are much more down and melancholy. Few people smile, and I’ve never had a complete stranger start up a conversation without cause. With this in mind, I’m going to start an experiment.

Between now and the end of the semester I am going to instigate a smiling log. I will smile to complete strangers ten times a day at my current university and keep details of how they respond. Will they smile back? Give some sort of greeting? Stop for a conversation? Scowl? Ignore me? Say, “What the hell are you smiling at?” I will do the same for my old school as well, as many times as I can as I will not be able to visit that campus as much as I am here. I will also visit other campuses as well, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll find out which campus is the friendliest.

If anyone has any suggestions I’d like to hear them.