Youth today are very much more concerned with comfort, and informality in what they wear. What is very evident to me, particularly in the UMBC Skipjack yearbook, was that the only time that I saw anyone wear sneakers of any kind was while they were playing a sport. Any other photos of students in their day to day business they wore leather oxfords or dress shoes, something much more formal by our standards. For men, more formal footwear was accompanied by collared shirts, jackets, and often ties. Look around the campus today and you’d be surprised to find a more formal pair of shoes, much less a tie on anyone.As we’ve recently discussed in class, it’s now apparently socially acceptable to go to class in pajamas. This alone reflects a very different attitude towards how you present yourself at a university, students clearly don’t consider how they present themselves as important. In the photos in the yearbook, everyone appeared to be professional. You got the sense that these people wanted to be there, they were prepared and strove to do well. When you look around the campus today and you see people walking around in pajamas or very informal clothing and treat going to school like they haven’t left their house, it almost demeans in a sense the professional aspect of a research university. If changing into a decent set of clothing is too much effort and not worth it, how does that reflect on your performance as a student or your motives for being a student? College attendance is a norm in our culture today, while it wasn’t 50 years ago. This difference in style illustrates how today’s culture has shifted to taking for granted a college education.
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