(no subject)
Each time there's a school shooting it makes me nervous to go to school. If I was on a traditional four year campus, I would really not at all be worried about it. I would feel the tragedy and such but really being at a four year campus where a lot of people live on campus is, or at least feels, like a secure environment. As is stands now I got to Santa Rosa Junior College. We are primarily a commuter campus, only about 5 % of us live "on campus," which really means they live in apartments across the street. We have all walks of life that attend the college, as well as all age groups, ethnicities, etc. And at the end of the day we each go home to our separate homes and apartments that are spread out through Sonoma County, which extends to and includes Santa Rosa, Petaluma, Healdsburg, Sebastopol, Guerneville, and Cazadero. To put this in perspective moving diagonally from Southeast to Northwest it takes upwards of two hours to cross the whole county, so it's pretty big. The population isn't very high because there's a lot of fields and mountains and stuff that are undeveloped.
Either way, we have all walks of life and separate homes. We also have (strangely enough) a bunch of out of state people who have come to SRJC. Most of us work as well, adding to the stresses of the school. Our counselors are absolutely terrible and apparently we have some sort of health thing that I'd never heard of. And we have one of those emergency lights that's located in a place that's convenient to about 4 of the 41 buildings on campus. Most of the late night classes occur on the other side of the campus as labs. And our security is more concerned about Parking violations than student safety. If a 40 year old male doesn't look out of place on campus, neither does someone dressed in all black looking somewhat angry. If someone is disturbed, isolated, withdrawn, crying for help, there is no support system for them on campus. They go home at the end of the day to a house with either no one else there or completely disconnected parents. So if there was someone who was on the edge and considering taking such an act, there would be no support system for them to fall back on. No counselors, no friends, no dorm rooms where the RA's become concerned about their behaviour, nothing. So it's scary.
This recent one is the most scary, because no matter what campus he was on, there were no warning signs of the seriousness of his mental state, so no one had any idea.
Either way, we have all walks of life and separate homes. We also have (strangely enough) a bunch of out of state people who have come to SRJC. Most of us work as well, adding to the stresses of the school. Our counselors are absolutely terrible and apparently we have some sort of health thing that I'd never heard of. And we have one of those emergency lights that's located in a place that's convenient to about 4 of the 41 buildings on campus. Most of the late night classes occur on the other side of the campus as labs. And our security is more concerned about Parking violations than student safety. If a 40 year old male doesn't look out of place on campus, neither does someone dressed in all black looking somewhat angry. If someone is disturbed, isolated, withdrawn, crying for help, there is no support system for them on campus. They go home at the end of the day to a house with either no one else there or completely disconnected parents. So if there was someone who was on the edge and considering taking such an act, there would be no support system for them to fall back on. No counselors, no friends, no dorm rooms where the RA's become concerned about their behaviour, nothing. So it's scary.
This recent one is the most scary, because no matter what campus he was on, there were no warning signs of the seriousness of his mental state, so no one had any idea.