美国国家公共电台 NPR Navigating Campus For The 'Not Rich': Students Launch A Crowdsourced Guide

Navigating¹ Campus For The 'Not Rich': Students Launch A Crowdsourced Guide

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

College is expensive. And at the University of Michigan, the student government tried to help by publishing a guide for cost-effective living at the school. Some of the suggestions were not helpful.

GRIFFIN ST ONGE: You know, do you have a gardener that takes care of your house? Do you have a laundry service? Do you get your hair done every week? Do you get your nails done every week? These are things you can cut out of your life. Yeah, I'm going to go cut out my lawn service that I don't have already.

SHAPIRO: That's Michigan junior Griffin St. Onge, who decided² with her friend to take matters into her own hands. They published an online guide that anybody can edit. It's now grown to 80 pages, and it's called "Being Not-Rich At UM."

ST ONGE: I didn't really realize the culture of Michigan before coming here. I had been warned about it a little bit, but I had never met the kind of wealth that some of the students have here by the time that I came to university. So I remember my freshman³ orientation⁴. They do this mandatory⁵ presentation, and it's about like 45 minutes. They go pretty in-depth about work-study opportunities and scholarships and loans and things like that. And I had been like trying to make friends a little bit earlier. I met this girl out of state. We were sitting and watching this presentation together.

And I was sitting there starting to get a little worried. Like, you know, this is such a big financial decision. My parents are helping⁶ the best they can. I've got scholarships and loans and a job and things like that. And this girl this turns to me and is like, gosh, I'm so bored. Like my mom is going to pay for this anyway. I don't even need to be here. So that was kind of where I first realized like, oh, my gosh, you know, like this is a really different culture than what I'm accustomed to. And like some people here don't struggle with the same things that I struggle with.

SHAPIRO: So what made you realize that you could actually help your fellow students by working with your friends to write something like this that would be widely available, shareable? People could collectively edit it. What made you decide to take that plunge⁷?

ST ONGE: So my friend Lauren Schandevel came up with the idea. In the couple of days surrounding that guide, it was kind of becoming a joke but also kind of becoming, you know, a serious conversation of like what this university looks like and how the student conversation of affordability⁸ kind of takes place. And she came up with the idea to start her own guide. So she kind of wrote this like skeletal 10 to 15 phrases of like a table of contents. And then I heard about it pretty immediately and thought it was just such a great idea and that, you know, as a junior in college, I had a lot of really useful information about, you know, work-study and scholarships and things like that. So I really wanted to contribute.

SHAPIRO: Obviously, there's useful information in this guide. Is there more to it than that - something about people being able to speak openly about things that in the past might have caused them shame, that they might not have felt comfortable talking about?

ST ONGE: So there's a lot of just like lists of like resources that the university already had. But then the structure of it has also been great because it's been a very trustworthy resource for people to talk candidly⁹ about their own experiences, I think. You know, they can say like, this job was really helpful to me, or this place sells, you know, day-old bread that's really cheap and things like that. There was also just a lot of great sections about like making friends because at times it can be hard when you're meeting like a lot of really wealthy students. And they go to vacation in Europe for spring break and things like that. And you want to like do things with them, but they want to eat out all the time. And like how do you navigate¹⁰ that? And we have a great section where it's just kind of like, you know, you're not alone. You know, you can be frank about the things that you're able to do and the things that you're not able to do.

SHAPIRO: Why do you think it's been so hard up until now to have this conversation about the economic divide among students?

ST ONGE: The University of Michigan, in particular, does have resources for low-income students. But it's just so hard to market to students when they're coming from environments where if you were working a part-time job and taking care of your siblings¹¹ instead of being captain of the swim team, how does that affect your application? There's a lot of really pressing issues on campus where the marginalization is very visible. Class can be less visible. So in particular with class, it's good to have that guide, I think, because, you know, students can independently go and like comment resources they know, regardless of what the definition they think of their socioeconomic status is. If they know something helpful, they can talk about it. And then from there, you know, we were able to kind of have a space for students to, you know, work together and talk about these issues and then also implement¹² the things that they think should be implemented¹³.

SHAPIRO: Griffin St. Onge, thanks so much for talking with us.

ST ONGE: Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

SHAPIRO: She's a junior at University of Michigan. And she's one of the publishers of the new guide "Being Not-Rich At UM."

(SOUNDBITE OF EL MICHELS AFFAIR'S "C.R.E.A.M.")

1 navigating   

v.给（船舶、飞机等）引航，导航( navigate的现在分词 )；（从海上、空中等）横越；横渡；飞跃

参考例句：

• These can also be very useful when navigating time-based documents, such as video and audio. 它对于和时间有关的文档非常有用，比如视频和音频文档。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• Vehicles slowed to a crawl on city roads, navigating slushy snow. 汽车在市区路上行驶缓慢，穿越泥泞的雪地。 来自互联网

2 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

3 freshman   

n.大学一年级学生(可兼指男女)

参考例句：

• Jack decided to live in during his freshman year at college.杰克决定大一时住校。
• He is a freshman in the show business.他在演艺界是一名新手。

4 orientation   

n.方向，目标；熟悉，适应，情况介绍

参考例句：

• Children need some orientation when they go to school.小孩子上学时需要适应。
• The traveller found his orientation with the aid of a good map.旅行者借助一幅好地图得知自己的方向。

5 mandatory   

adj.命令的；强制的；义务的；n.受托者

参考例句：

• It's mandatory to pay taxes.缴税是义务性的。
• There is no mandatory paid annual leave in the U.S.美国没有强制带薪年假。

6 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

7 plunge   

v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲

参考例句：

• Test pool's water temperature before you plunge in.在你跳入之前你应该测试水温。
• That would plunge them in the broil of the two countries.那将会使他们陷入这两国的争斗之中。

8 affordability   

可购性

参考例句：

• Performance-Based Logistics Affordability: Can We Afford Categorical Conversion to Performance-Based Acquisition? 基于性能的后期的可承受性：能否担负得起向基于性能的采办的无条件的转变？
• There would be no crisis of affordability, as't for food or clothing. 就想食物与服装一样，因为供给没有危机。

9 candidly   

adv.坦率地，直率而诚恳地

参考例句：

• He has stopped taking heroin now,but admits candidly that he will always be a drug addict.他眼下已经不再吸食海洛因了,不过他坦言自己永远都是个瘾君子。
• Candidly,David,I think you're being unreasonable.大卫，说实话我认为你不讲道理。

10 navigate   

v.航行，飞行；导航，领航

参考例句：

• He was the first man to navigate the Atlantic by air.他是第一个飞越大西洋的人。
• Such boats can navigate on the Nile.这种船可以在尼罗河上航行。

11 siblings   

n.兄弟，姐妹( sibling的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• A triplet sleeps amongst its two siblings. 一个三胞胎睡在其两个同胞之间。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She has no way of tracking the donor or her half-siblings down. 她没办法找到那个捐精者或她的兄弟姐妹。 来自时文部分

12 implement   

n.(pl.)工具，器具；vt.实行，实施，执行

参考例句：

• Don't undertake a project unless you can implement it.不要承担一项计划，除非你能完成这项计划。
• The best implement for digging a garden is a spade.在花园里挖土的最好工具是铁锹。

13 implemented   

v.实现( implement的过去式和过去分词 )；执行；贯彻；使生效

参考例句：

• This agreement, if not implemented, is a mere scrap of paper. 这个协定如不执行只不过是一纸空文。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The economy is in danger of collapse unless far-reaching reforms are implemented. 如果不实施影响深远的改革，经济就面临崩溃的危险。 来自辞典例句