Barnard College - Mortarboard Yearbook (New York, NY)

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ON GRADUATING Codesto solo oggi possiamo dirti, Cio6 che non siamo, ci6 che non vogliamo. This is all that today we can tell you, That is, only what we are not, only what we do not want. Qssi di Seppia . by Eugenio Montale Time, so important to people, has always been divided into spans; the seasons, months, years, decades and centuries are the frameworl into which man divides his history. Each division mark an end, a transition and a iDeginning. As the 1980 graduates of Barnard College we face that same end, transition and beginning which mark the close of the seventies and the start of the eighties. As with every beginning, the start of the eighties prompts us to reflect on ourselves and our lives. We estimate and evaluate our past and our present; new leaves are turned as we make promises to ourselves and others; a fresh start is envisioned. We face the eighties with expectant, quietly hopeful hearts. Our goals are for a future that is better than our present because it i§ different and it is ours, not because it will be any better than today. The type of future we make for ourselves will serve to characterize the eighties. We are products of the last two decades and the present. As bone-fide adults, we make our dramatic entrance into the world along with a new — never before used — era. We will shape the decade ' s characteristics by lending it our own. As we define ourselves we will define the eighties; graduation symbolizes our ability foe self-definition. College has prepared us for an uncertain decade and an uncertain future, all we can say is what we ar e not. The seventies have brought world-wide economic problems which forced many of us to give up the idealism of the sixties. The eighties will see a generation of realists not visionaries. Contrary to the media ' s accusations of complacency, practicality and realism are taking root in our characters. If most of us now search for practical vocations, practical schools, practical lives it is not because we were frightened by the changes of the sixties but rather because we are enacting our own changes. Granted, these changes are not nearly as colorful or media-catching as those of the sixties, but they are just as drastic — we have learned to accept our present. As a group we are more realisitc about our future than those in the sixties who, seeing an idealistic future beyond, fought their present. We see no dream-future, we work with what we have rather than what we will or should have. Our lack of violent radicalism has served to label us as self-centered and indifferent to the problems yet to be solved. On the contrary, we are both aware of and sympathetic to current problems but we simply react to the present without the frantic urgency of the sixties. We know what we do not want. As individuals we are sure only of one thing — part of what we are, will be, is what we have already experienced. For four years we shared the experience of Barnard. Grazia-Maria Rechichi Editor-in Chief 3

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