Student apathy, or the rise of the Bob?

March 2010: I was sitting in the University quadrangle, listening to a debate between the competing candidates for the University Students Council (KSU) presidency, Carl Grech and Andre Vella.

A commerce student, who happens to be my friend, came to sit next to me. Let’s call him Bob. Bob enquired as to what was going on in the quadrangle. I quickly pointed out the people debating belonged to two parties, Studenti Demokratiċi Maltin and Moviment Indipendenti who both hoped to be elected for the new term in KSU.

My friend looked perplexed. I asked him what was wrong and he replied, “What’s KSU?”

Bob was a third year student; this question did not compute in my mind. How could Bob not know about the KSU after being at University for so long? I decided to hide my disbelief and answered the question. After my explanation, Bob nodded his head and his gaze drifted away.

I imagined he was taking in all the new information about KSU and its functions, but I was wrong. He looked back at me, smiled innocently and asked, “So what are KSU contesting for?”

Needless to say, this conversation did not end well. However, I decided to run a little experiment. I talked to some students present, to see if they knew what KSU was.

Result: Not many could really give me an exact answer. I felt sad knowing some students who stopped to watch the debate actually didn’t even know what they were listening to and probably wouldn’t even vote at election time.

The saddest part is there are so many students just like Bob walking around the quadrangle like zombies on a daily basis.