As a student, if you obsess about race and gender and social injustice you will actually NOT have the skills to fix social problems in your adulthood.
Do this instead during your precious student years:
You can build yourself into something! Here is how:
A -Educate yourself so that you can offer something that is unique, that people will seek:
1 - Amass knowledge in a specialized area that people need. This could be in any realm:
a - a sub-specialty in a profession such as law or the medical field, which takes years
of academic study and practice. Example - physical therapy with a sub-specialty in children's rehabilitation. Nursing with a sub-specialty in public health. Legal services with a sub-specialty in family law.
There are topics that take fewer years of academic study:
b - a special branch of finance
c - a special branch of physical fitness
d - a special branch of music therapy
You can even have a job that "pays the bills" and develop something unique on the side. Your job does not have to express all of your abilities. Here are some example:
a - Day job: secretarial work. In the evenings, creative art or music
b - Day job: construction work. In the evenings, write children's books on a specific topic, go to the library and research what is needed, read voraciously, and produce books for children say on nature, on health, on a sub-specialty of history.
c - Day job - homemaker/housewife. When kids are at school, read up on finance and investing and be a resource for your community. Or, read up on abuse in the home and be a liaison for abuse victims to get help.
While you are at it, a secretary or construction worker can develop a sub-specialty in that career. Do some reading on what is needed.
B - It is essential that you see yourself as a team player, as part of a greater whole, as working to make the entire organization succeed.
a - Review religious teachings in all the major religions about forgiveness, patience, forbearance, and loving one's neighbor. You cannot be looking for racism, prejudice and microaggressions and get along with people! If something does come up at work, like, "you Jews are sharp, you make the best lawyers, my lawyer is Jewish and he is a whip." Gently say, "You know, you may not want to say that in the office setting, it may offend." No need to bear a grudge!
Or, here is another that happened to me, "I am a Nazi, I resent the Jewish religion because no one can join it, it is a race. Anyone can embrace Jesus just by going down on one knee and accepting him as saviour." I corrected him on that point, I said we have converts, and I heard him out on his criticisms against the state of Israel. He ended with, "I really appreciated that you listened. Can I give you a hug?"
Give leeway to people, make allowances. Many of your professors have positions in which they decidedly DO NOT need to get along with others. I witnessed two emotionally abusive professors at Middlebury College, late 1980's and realized that these people are the opposite of how to be to get along in the real world.
Build yourself into something unique, that people will seek. Love your fellow. All the rest is commentary, which every major religion will provide for you, so read up on the tradition you inherited regarding loving one's fellow. You do not have to be devout to read religious teachings.
How I suffered in my liberal youth:
In the liberal society I grew up in, 1970's and 80's, Brookline, Mass, we were expected to debate political and social issues. Scant attention was paid to one's life skills or basic needs.
I embraced a traditional lifestyle in my late teens and am now an orthodox Jew. I am constantly amazed at how much I lost, growing up liberal.
We were groomed to be activists, and you cannot be happy and an activist - groomed to be on the alert for social injustice and thus in a state of agitation, neurotic almost.
In contrast, traditional people are family oriented, they focus their energy on how they will build a strong family, and in that vein, build themselves to be team players in a strong family and community unit. This means they improve their personal characteristics and career choice regarding what will benefit them as a wife and mother, as husband and father.
I did not get the tools I needed to live from liberals. During the time I embraced tradition, my liberal friends and acquaintances chose to debate me. I now reflect on what a critical time of life that was for me - I needed advice on my career and interpersonal skills, not a debate as to whether religion is sexist or not.
I continue to live a traditional lifestyle, and mourn at all the obtuseness and obsessions in the liberal world - college kids are obsessed with race and gender and the injustice of it all. They are not spending that precious time building their character and career skills, during these critical years that they will never get back.
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