I’m concerned about us, University. I was nervous when I got to campus to pursue my degree. You chewed up one of my friends, so he dropped out. That first semester, you gave me the lowest GPA I’d ever had. You helped me figure out what I was interested in, grow my voice and become a better student. Now I’m graduating. I can fill that first line of my resume with your name across the top. But I’m worried that name doesn’t mean as much as I thought it would when I showed up in front of Alma Mater three years ago.

Last semester, after meeting with my academic adviser every semester — sometimes multiple times just to ask: “Hey, are these classes OK? These keep me on track, right?” — I was informed (after the add-drop date) that instead of being on track as I had thought, I was actually two upper-level courses behind. Now I had options: I could take 24 credit hours the final semester of my senior year, I could stay another semester, or I could drop my minor.

I’ve been told many times that it’s just a minor, but I wanted that distinction on my transcript. I wanted employers and graduate schools and everybody else to know that I love Saussure as much as I love Tolkien. That I love reading “Paradise Lost” as much as I love learning how propaganda shaped advertising during World War I.

I embarked on a mission to save my minor. I talked to the dean of LAS, asking what could be done. The way I saw it, I had taken the necessary upper-level courses, they just weren’t allowed to count for both my major and my minor. The way LAS saw it, I was taking two classes too few and therefore not completing the minor. I talked to one of the assistant provosts, who said they had no control over what makes a major and minor. That’s a decision made by individual colleges. I went back to LAS — and made no progress.

I learned what I really am to the university: not a student, not a person, not even a paycheck, but a number. One of 32,000.

What frustrates me most isn’t the fact that I couldn’t keep my minor. It’s not the fact that the University illustrated that it didn’t care for its students. It’s not even the fact that I couldn’t rely on my advisers to help me graduate as I wanted to. No, it’s the reason ultimately given to me for why I couldn’t get the minor. Making an exception for me, I was told, would “lessen the value” of the degree.

Lessen the value of the degree?

What lessens the value of my degree is students who don’t put in the work. Who come to class without material read. Who don’t engage in classroom discussion. Who don’t turn in their work on time. Who can’t be bothered to review my essays and give me critical feedback that could, I don’t know, actually help me improve as a student.

What lessens the value of my degree is students who come to college because they think they should. Who think a college degree will get them a job. Who don’t like to learn. Who wish they were anywhere else but the cramped classrooms in Greg Hall. Who show up just to sign the attendance sheet. Who sleep during lecture.

Roughly 30 percent of Americans hold a bachelor’s degree. In 2012, 1.9 million people with a bachelor’s were unemployed. Nearly half of the nation’s recent college graduates have jobs that don’t require a degree. When we leave the University, our insulated sphere of college, and try to make our way outside the Champaign-Urbana bubble, my resume will read the same thing as the student who worked to earn enough to come back and get his degree. It will read the same as the student who got drunk every Thursday night and skipped all his Friday classes. It will read the same as the student who read her textbook the night it was assigned and reviewed it the morning of her class. It will read the same as the student who prides herself on not completing readings, who shops for shoes while in class.

U.S. News & World Report ranks the University of Illinois as 46th in the nation. We are at this school paying an exorbitant sum of money to become educated. This is not simply a line on a resume. This is not four years of free time before the proverbial “real world” sets in. This is not extended high school without the parental supervision. This is not the time to slack and reap the rewards of a professor so tired of poor grammar he gives up on written exams and makes them all multiple choice.

This is the time to grow up.

Sarah is a senior in LAS. She can be reached at [email protected].