Be Good. Be Orange.

The Future is Orange: The Campaign for Inner Growth by Alex Hoffer

By working at or attending Oregon State University, an individual is subscribing to a community. The idea of a community of individuals who represent Oregon State is certainly abstract. After all, how can you include every age and background in a single group? To encompass all of those who identify as Beavers, OSU’s administration has provided us with a simple, concise phrase that not only clumps all Beavers into a tidy category, but also gives us an idea of what it truly means to be a Beaver. That phrase (“Be Orange”) has some weight to it, however. What does it mean? It says “Be Orange” everywhere- on campus, on signs, on shirts. It is an idea that offers up many interpretations. But to Be Orange, it says something about a person. OSU’s “Be Orange” motto is a conclusive statement that means to be a Beaver, you must accept that you desire to grow in maturity.

First, we must ask the fundamental question of “what is maturity?” in relation to Being Orange. When we’re young, we hear the word incessantly. We would hear it when we were acting young for our age. We’d hear it when we sprouted a chest hair. But these definitions of maturity must be abandoned for a more inclusive interpretation, one which is more abstract, certainly, but also arguably more rewarding. To be in pursuit of maturity means that you know that you have a foundation of knowledge and experiences, but you recognize that you can certainly grow in those areas, and grow as a person in general. Nobody attends college without the desire to grow in intellectual maturity; simply by attending college an individual is suggesting that they would like to learn more about a subject or subjects of their choosing. In order to Be Orange, a person must identify that they could develop mentally and emotionally by attending Oregon State University, an institution that provides ample opportunity to succeed in those pursuits through various degree programs and a qualified teaching staff.

The rewards of this development in maturity are vast and very much up to the person who acquires them. The rewards are, in many cases, what attract an individual to the pursuit to begin with. Sure, some have an interest in school, and will take courses without any intention of graduating simply out of the lust for knowledge, but many college students join in on the Orange experiment so they can reap its benefits. They see OSU graduates go on to do great things, such as making advances in medicine, or opening their own veterinary practice. As a result, they enroll in the university. What they’re looking at in these success stories is a level of maturity that was in development at the time of the first class. Take my friend’s father Mark, who graduated from OSU with a Business degree and became a successful banker. Mark was molded by not only his academic experiences here, but also his social ones. He met a girl at OSU. He married her while he was a student. OSU gave him not only a degree but a social immersion that granted him a woman he loves.

OSU offers academia that will grant an individual knowledge that they can apply to a number of situations, but, perhaps what’s more profound is, it allows a breeding ground of different views and backgrounds that, simply by exposure, causes a person’s mind to open and his character to mature.

A person can receive the inner growth and maturity that OSU offers by not attending the school, surely. But what the Be Orange campaign suggests is that this maturity will come to the student in a way that is unique to OSU. And, while you don’t need school to become well-rounded, it is evident that the years you spend here force you to mature in a caring environment at a steady pace. Naturally, Be Orange is merely a motto, not a mandatory rule. Some can come and go from the institution without gaining any of the maturity OSU offers if you accept it. To Be Orange is also to accept that OSU has the capability of providing you with great things- whether these things be the tools to solving the problems of the world, or simply the problems of your life. Being Orange is not for those who have no interest in growing internally, and it never will be. To Be Orange, you need to have a designated level of ethic and interest that permits you to grow with the help of OSU.

The idea of inner growth and maturity is not exclusive to the students of OSU. Everybody who involves themselves with OSU has the opportunity to Be Orange. To Be Orange, one must have the desire to grow and be granted the experience to do so. For a professor, Being Orange is going into a class as a teacher and realizing that they could also be a student, learning from the knowledge of their students and shaping their future ability to teach. For a janitor, Being Orange could mean being inspired by the quality of their job to go back to school. No matter what, Oregon State offers experiences, and whether you choose to use those experiences and truly Be Orange falls upon the passion and drive of the individual.

To leave OSU unshaped is not a flaw of the school itself- rather, it is the flaw of the person who endured their time there. Like all life experiences, there is something to learn at Oregon State University. OSU is distinctly special from other life events because it offers countless experiences at your convenience; experiences at OSU are literally a walk away. And what you take from those experiences- whether it be a further sense of responsibility, an enhanced work ethic, the ability to look at things through different lenses to gain perspective- determine whether you truly were Orange or not. If you want to Be Orange, if you want to go through the task of maturity, Oregon State has it waiting for you on a silver platter. But if you take that offer, and you do become Orange, you will find that at the end of the tunnel there is indeed a better life ahead.