Some 600 college students across the country entered the New York Times Magazine College Essay Contest, in which they had to respond to Rick Perlstein’s July article “What’s the Matter With College,” which asserted the belief that the college experience as we know it is coming to an end.

Although only one winner was selected, a junior from Yale, four Oberlin College students’ essays have recently been posted on the New York Times blog along with 450 other responses. The Times wrote to all those who entered: “We were so blown away by the entries, and by the window they offer into how college students are thinking, that we want to post them all online.” College senior Jake Grossman, College junior Alesandra Zsiba, and College sophomores Rhett-Alexander Paranay and Alice Ollstein, also a News Editor for the Review, all had their essays posted.

Some essays responded by vehemently condemning Perlstein’s opinion as ignorant of the contemporary student activism, on the grounds that he maintains the link between our college generation and the “glory days” of the 60s.

Other responses were more critical of our generation’s apathetic approach to social issues, citing Oberlin’s “Fearless” motto as a lamentably perfect representation of our generation — a generation so saturated by our affluence and search for social status that we don’t fear for the lives of those facing poverty, inhumanity and war.

Grossman explained why he entered the contest: “It is necessary to provide a counter-narrative to theories that are constructed in that way and then waved around as normative claims.”
In her essay, Zsiba likened the college experience to an old car that our parents cherish more then we do.

Additionally, Paranay discussed the impact of the Internet on our generation and how that influence can both connect and divide us.