As a University student, I find myself interacting with many different people over the course of a week. There is not a time on campus that I am not surrounded by both students and staff. The interactions that students have with one another, staff and friends all differ, but should they?

More often than not, students, myself included, continue on with our days without thinking about how our actions affect the people around us. But, as it turns out, our actions are more noticeable than they seem. I spent the day asking various staff members who interact with students daily what their pet peeves are about students.

Early in this pursuit, I found a more lighthearted pet peeve: addressing traffic courtesy. I am sure many of us and a few student workers in Hendrix can sympathize with this.

One pet peeve is “when you’re driving a golf cart, and students walk in front of you and won’t move out of the way,” a Hendrix student worker said.

However, the more I spoke with various staff, a consistent, disheartening theme arose.

“Not scanning in even though you know you have to,” was an annoyance noted by a cashier at Schilletter Dining Hall. She continued to explain how often students fail to do this one simple task, even though it is a task they must repeat on a daily basis over and over.

“When I am explaining something to them, and they just walk off, not listening,” a health information analyst at Redfern Health Center said.
“Women’s bathrooms sanitary products, they don’t put them in the brown bags or wrap it up in tissue, like your mom taught you. Students just leave a mess everywhere…” a member of the University housekeeping/janitorial staff said.

Another common theme between staff members from different departments around campus is a lack of respect. I understand that the life of a student can be stressful and can impose many challenges, but it is no excuse for being rude or disrespectful to those around you.

“Treat the space like you would for your parents… like it’s your home… have some respect for us,” she continued.

While taking the bus in the morning, I extended this question to a bus driver I see often driving a bus on the blue Tiger Transit route. “They don’t smile at me. You know? They come on the bus and pretend like you don’t exist,” the driver mentioned.

The next stop we arrived at, I noticed that, in fact, not even half of the students that got on the bus acknowledged the driver, and when he attempted to exchange pleasantries at the first drop-off with a student, he was met with silence.

Students are here for a purpose, I understand that, and often we get stuck in our own world and don’t process what is happening around us, but I think it is time that we take the initiative to foster an environment of respect.

After all, this inquiry led me to a conversation with a professor of mine in which he mentioned his student pet peeve was “when students don’t actively participate in their education.” If we, as students, aren’t even extending enough respect to our professors and ourselves to actively engage in our education, what is the point of pursuing higher education?

Our conversation continued to address the general lack of attention that professors receive from students and how it does not go unnoticed. He noted that engagement in class is how we are able to learn and how professors are able to adapt and understand their students, producing a better classroom environment.

As someone who is guilty of spacing out or fearing participation in class at times, I acknowledge the feelings and actions of students, as I myself have experienced them. But, all in all, we owe it to ourselves and those around us to extend respect to our Clemson campus community.

Through this experience, I was able to meet many new faces and find ways to change my habits for the better — just by engaging in conversation with those around me. I encourage everyone reading this to take a chance and talk to someone new because you might just make someone’s day.

Kylie Tutterow is a junior political science major from Spartanburg, South Carolina. Kylie can be reached at [email protected].