North Carolina State University - Agromeck Yearbook (Raleigh, NC)

Page 27 text:

If you are graduating now, you entered the school world around 1970. Things were pretty good then: the economy was healthy, women ' s lib was thriving, there were only blacks instead of niggers, and we had even forced Nixon to wind down the war m Vietnam. Things were pretty good: you wouldn ' t get drafted, your city wouldn ' t get burned, and anyone worth assassmating had been assassinated (and you wouldn ' t be forced to go through that trauma again). You could protest still - maybe even change the world. You could go through the diploma mill and score a certified meaningful job. It was all black and white: so simple. You could be anybody you wanted to be: when you left school, the world needed your highly trained skills; they didn ' t care who or what you were or, particularly, what you stood for; their technocracy needed you. ..Guess what? They don ' t need you anymore. The world has changed. We just had Watergate; we just lost Vietnam - it doesn ' t matter that some of us never gave a damn about either, what matters is that the world outside our world is tittering. Oh, and that guaranteed meaningful job? It isn ' t there anymore; Not enough jobs to go around. Your degree may be worthless; we may dig a few ditches before all this is over - really. Scared? Aren ' t you scared just a little ' as this neat pat world crumbles and transforms itself anew? But still there ' s the womb, mother college, where nothing ever happens except your grades, your lovers, and occasionally, your parents. Mother college, a place to learn to be something or someone. A chance to grow with other people. This is a book about people. The people were here at State in 1974 and 1975; some have since gone, though many remain, but most of that really doesn ' t matter. What matters is that they were people, people among us. People we knew, or perhaps didn ' t know, but people who shared an experience in common with ourselves. The words and pictures that preceeded and the words and pictures which follow are those from and of people like you. Look around inside them; you may find yourself there, or you may find a part of you you never knew about. I hope so. I hope a few of your friends and a few of your experiences are here; I want this to be your book.