I am a student and I work part-time at the Veterans Assistance Office, which is located at windows seven and eight at the Financial Aid Office in Swen Parson Hall. After reading the editorial, “Smile: it’s not that tough,” that appeared in The Northern Star on Sept. 14, I felt the need to respond to provide the other side of the story to the readers. This is the third semester that I have worked in the office, and being a student, I felt that I could provide an objective qualified response to the editorial.

The first statement that I would like to make is that the editorial has a definitely biased view of the office. Having worked in the office as long as I have, I have made many observations of the students receiving service. In most cases the students who do come for service are repeat offenders. What I mean is that most students end up returning because they did not fill out the Financial Aid Forms properly; this could be because their educaiton is insufficient and they lack the skills to do so.

Also, I have heard many students say that their parents fill out the forms for them, and the students are unable to provide the needed information to complete their form because their parents know the information. Many of the repeat offenders do not listen to the information that the Financial Aid Office provides and this only makes those long lines longer.

In veterans assistance, the work my fellow workers and I do includes the processing of forms to ensure that veterans receive the educational benefits they are entitled to. Yet, this phenomenon seems to happen everyday: some non-veteran student will ignore the sign (black lettering on an orange background VETERANS ASSISTANCE), posted at windows seven and eight, and ask me a non-veteran related financial aid question, which I cannot answer.

Most of the students who come to the veterans assistance windows in the manner I have previously mentioned, I feel safe in saying are of the repeat offenders I have alluded to. These students, who I must tell to go stand in the financial aid line if they want service, always seem to put qualifiers on their statements. These students say, for example, “I just want to see a counselor,” or “I just want to talk to someone in financial aid.” Isn’t that the reason that those persons standing in the financial aid line are there?

If the majority of the students who come to the Financial Aid Office would show some maturity, grow-up and take responsibility for their actions, and stop depending on Mom and Dad for administering their affairs, those long lines at the Financial Aid Office might lose some of those REPEAT OFFENDERS. With the repeat offenders not in the line to ask the same questions over and over again, those unfriendly faces might become friendly. My message to the repeat offenders is: take responsibility for your lives. One of the rites of maturity is becoming a responsible person: CUT DOWN THE LINES AT FINANCIAL AID AND DO IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME!

Stewart Penoyer

Senior

Public law