Be Good. Be Orange.

Be Sustainable, Be Orange

Submitted By Marco Olivera

If you walk around the campus you will notice the many values and phrases of what it mean to “be orange.” To be orange is to represent your school (Oregon State University), your program, and your self in a way other will admire. Some of the values that students and staff associate with being orange and that are currently seen around campus are accountability, diversity integrity, respect, and social responsibility. You can ask 100 people who are part of Oregon State or OSU Alumni and you may get 100 distinct answers, but one thing does hold true to all of these answers, and that is that being orange is associated with being an ethical person.
To me being orange means being sustainable. But I do not just define sustainable as a way to help save the planet. Sustainable to me encompasses more things, it means sustaining life by only taking your share, being sustainable by helping others so they can later help themselves, and in turn help others. It also means to respect others, their things, their beliefs, and themselves. To be sustainable you will graduate from OSU and contribute to make this world better for everyone not just those who are close to you or also graduated from Oregon State, but you do your part no matter how large or small to make this a better world.
Our “do ethics” assignment was a great jumping off point for many in our class, who like myself knew little about what ethics actually was. It doesn’t take a solution to world hunger to be ethical. It takes doing what you can to create a little good in the world. Something as small as donating 1 hour of your time to help your neighbor shovel snow off there sidewalk is an ethical act, it is a sustainable act, and it is an act that demonstrates what it mean to be orange.
I am towards the tail end of time here at Oregon State as an undergrad, and I did not come into the university the man I will be leaving as. Being Orange has truly become part of who I am. I will continue to “be orange” by being sustainable, I find it to be my responsibility to give back to the future generations for they hold the potential to solve problems that are still to exist, and to help the older generations for they hold the knowledge they have obtained through their experiences.