Rhodes students are perfect

There have been many stereo-types about Rhodes student and one cannot help but wonder how many of them are real. Some have called Rhodes students nerds, some have called them snobs, and some have called them drunks. One can actually see how all these labels contrast each other. One can witness these stereo-types when you go to a place and introduce yourself as a Rhodes student you can actually see how the attitude of people change towards you. This is because people tend to think that Rhodes students are perfect and intellectual and that they cannot do bad things or even that they do not go through hard times like everybody else. In this piece I am going to endeavour to reveal that not all these stereo-types are true Rhodes students also make mistakes and they can be quite bad people.

First of all I feel the urge to emphasise that Rhodes like any other community is a society with very diverse groups of people. One needs to understand that the people that are in Rhodes were not born here by one perfect mother and father so they are bound to be different and make mistakes. We all come from different backgrounds and we all had different upbringings in different households. I feel that it is not fair to put a label on all Rhodes students and say they are bad or good. We differ from person to person because we don’t have the same morals, values and principles.

As I have said Rhodes is a society and a society consists of many different kinds of people. Yes there are nerds, there are snobs and yes there are those who cannot control their alcohol intake. We have our baddies and we have our Miss Perfect and Mr. Perfects. What I want to pay more attention to is the fact that people think that Rhodes students are all wonderful and perfect because I fully disagree with this statement.

I am going to refer to an incident that happened in 2004 where a Rhodes student shot his girlfriend on campus and then turned the gun on himself. This on its own show that Rhodes students can be quite brutal because how can you shoot someone else’s daughter and ignore the fact that they are here to establish a solid future for themselves or they are even here to get an education so that they can work and change the lifestyle of their family. I know that it was also a great loss for the guys’ parents but I really do think that if a person is tired of living they should take their own lives and leave other people to carry on with their lives.

In the year following that one (2005) another student was arrested for the possession of stolen goods. Who would think that a university student more especially a Rhodes student is capable of doing that? Probably no-one or just a few people who are brave enough to face reality.

I am going to finish this off by saying that people should stop thinking that Rhodes students cannot do bad things because as evident above this is not true. We are all human and if one is human they are bound to put a foot wrong once in a while there and there. It does not matter who you are, where you come from or where you are getting your education because for the past few months that I have been here I haven’t heard even one lecturer teaching people about how they should behave that only happens in high school and if one haven’t acquired it there then I really thing that it will be hard for them to acquire life skills in university.

By: Ntombi