Why is AUC the target of so much hate by its students?
Yasmine Nagaty - Opinions Editor
One of the quickest things I’ve learnt over the past three years is how easy it is to criticize everything about AUC. We seem to exist within two extreme opinions about this place.
To outsiders, AUC’s reputation typically falls under “the best university in Egypt” slogan. Yet contrary to popular opinion, our life as AUCians is not as blissful as it seems. We are being educated in a university that has a gate under the name of Pepsi, a buiding called “Hatem” and a man hired to feed cats. Naturally, there is a lot to be critical of. And I would rather not get started on the eccentricities of AUC community.
Being in AUC is rather like living in Egypt; we complain endlessly but we never get fed up to the point of leaving. The only difference is that most of us exhibit a love for Egypt that we never do for AUC.
Every time I hear someone complaining about traffic, lack of following the rules, or anything else about Egypt, I am seized with a desire to simply ask why the hell they are still standing on Egyptian ground if they hate it so much. I believe the same follows for AUC. Although like I said, we are not loyal to AUC the way that we are to this abstract notion of our country and that we do have the right to be critical of certain things, I am growing tired of hating this place for almost four consecutive years.
The truth is, we all have the option to leave AUC if we really wanted to, yet nobody really does because they are aware that AUC does provide a good quality of education at least compared to other options in front of us. Yet we hate AUC and try to detach ourselves from this place even though we spend years growing up within it and become part of it whether we’d like to admit it or not.
You may be wondering what I am getting at by saying all of this. I believe it is truly time to stop the constant whining about the problems of AUC. The first step towards doing so has already been taken through the student strikes last week.
Looking at statuses on Facebook and Twitter and even through normal conversations, I have felt a general change in the AUC atmosphere that suggests that AUCians are becoming more responsive and less whiny. Slogans like “AUCians tel’o regala” (“seems like AUC really does have real men”) show that there is a more positive approach in the way that we understand and interact with each other as AUCians.
I think it is a shame that we waste such a long time in AUC with a negative attitude that neither helps improve AUC nor makes our time here any better. Given that I know many people who share this feeling, it is time to make AUC a place we are proud to belong to.
Any university has its drawbacks and even if ours are as ridiculous as feeding cats and a nine percent increase in tuition, there is something we can do about it as the strike clearly demonstrated. For those who insist on constant whining and complaining, I simply say: Leave!
