Here's what Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, had to say to Millenials: "I think one of the most important pieces of advice I can give young people is that you should try to arrange your life in such a fashion that you minimize your consumption expenses as much as is practical so that you take on as little debt as possible."
Growing up, I came in contact with very few who shared this perspective. In Belize (as with the rest of the world, basically) ownership of certain commodities signal security against the backdrop of a developing economy. At least this environment incentivized a sort of business savvy among my peers and I, constantly selling, importing and buying items from each other. Ironically, it wasn't until moving to the US that I came across the notion of minimalism. Against both the ascetic ideals of self-deprivation, and the indulgences of consumerism, minimalism upholds the value of living deliberately and actively seeking out the things which provide measurable improvements to your life in the long run. It is often superficially conceived of as restriction based ethos in which people pick an arbitrary number of items they wish to own, and proceed to pare down their possessions until they reach that magic number, but writers on the subject have expressed disagreement with that version.
In the entrepreneurial community, the ability to cut back on waste and focus on that which is most important is one deliberate safeguard against uncertainties. After all Wales himself is more or less an entrepreneur even while Wikipedia has towed the hard line against monetizing in any way. The quote from Wales came from the site Quora. Yes, the same place where users give each other advice on how to accomplish anything from learning a new skill in 10 minutes to buying the cheapest car possible to live in and moving to the Silicon Valley area. I find it to be useful advice, perhaps because I came to the same conclusions myself. Who could argue with a co-founder of Wikipedia.
To my surprise, the one place in America in which this attitude should be exemplified hasn't gotten the memo (at least in my experience). That place is the American university. Contrary to the image of starving academics huddled over cups of Ramen noodles and passing the time away cogitating on hefty tomes packed with the very best of human insight, what I experienced at college in my very first semester was an appalling amount of glut.
What Wales is saying is not directed at college students per se. But the painstakingly obvious is that being a college student is often antithetical to following his advice. To illustrate this indulgence literally, here's an example of what I saw at college: At the end of every week, students who had signed up for meal plans would have almost half or more of their "swipes" left over and would go to the cafeterias, food courts and restaurants to spend the remainder only to stock it away one of the many mini-fridges in the dorms. This food would then be given away, thrown out, played with, etc. or sometimes eaten. Many opted for the non-perishable foods to avoid having to throw it out, so these processed foods eventually become a big part of the student's diet. To be fair, there were some great health food options in at least one of the cafeterias. Kudos to the school's dietitian. (If you're a student trying to avoid the "freshman 15" or an athlete, these people can help you make healthy choices. If you're too lazy to meet with them, take Michael Pollan's advice: "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants" Emphasis mine.)
Let's face it though, no one really cares about whether college students themselves are underfed Ramen noodle repositories or overfed dwellers of the dining hall. I mean, let the scholars enjoy some aspect of their stressed out lives, right? The point is that as a college student, one must take a serious interest in living deliberately, otherwise you end up with too many meal swipes, taking the wrong sections of a class, spending upwards of 6 years on a Bachelor's degree, etc. Little things like that...
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