While searching for a college that you want to attend, the campus layout and accessibility is a big factor for many.

I knew that I wanted to feel at home when I walked around campus and throughout my dorm.
Safety is a big issue when it is your first time away from home in a strange place, so why not choose a campus with the best security?

Shippensburg University’s campus, to me, feels very safe and orderly at all times.
Walking around campus during the day, I never feel a threat or an uncomfortable feeling about where I am or what is going on around me.

A campus should present a comfortable atmosphere for students to live in.
But at night, things are a different story.

As a girl, I have learned that walking by myself is not an option. But that does not mean that guys should be walking at night alone either.

Regardless of gender, people should walk in pairs during late hours of the night.
They should similarly avoid walking late at night, unless needed. This is common sense to me at this point in my own life.

But not everyone follows the same thought processes and has the same worries as I do.
Too many cases every year of rape, harassment, homicides and people getting beat are reported on college campuses.

These people tend to be alone, or intoxicated or not paying much attention to their surroundings.
These are serious events that need to be stopped, or at least have ways of being prevented.

Although safety when walking at night is a huge concern, there are other problems with being safe.
The word “safety” does not just pertain to the steps you should accomplish when being by yourself, but sometimes there can be a lot of people involved.

Hazing is one thing that I cannot understand, or tolerate.

The definition of hazing is the force to perform strenuous, humiliating or dangerous acts.
Do these things really need to be worried about?

Because I am sure it is the last thing on a student’s or parent’s mind when getting ready for college.

Fraternities and sororities have been traditionally doing violent and humiliating acts to one another for years on college campuses.

But hazing has adapted to sports teams, marching bands, military organizations and clubs on campuses also.

In Orlando, Fla., a drum major, Robert Champion, from A & M University was violently killed on the team’s charter bus.

They had “games” such as making a person run from the front of the bus, to the back of the bus, getting kicked, punched and humiliated the whole way.
Champion was being hazed on the bus and at one point got off to vomit.
The bus driver was told to ignore the hazing acts, and forced the man back on the bus to receive even more.

Champion suffered trauma blows and died from shock by severe bleeding after the hazing act.
A young man’s life was taken over a safety issue that no one should have to deal with.
I know it seems funny to pick on younger people or torture those who hate the idea of hazing, but it is not funny and it is cruel.

Champion’s death could have been prevented.
No student should feel unsafe in his or her own surroundings while living at college.
That is why we pick campuses that fit our needs.

I know from growing up in a small town that I would not have felt comfortable going to Temple University because it is right inside a large city.
Shippensburg does a great job of making me feel safe.

And even though there have been occurrences of problems with people getting hurt, I know that carrying Mace, walking in groups and picking knowledgeable times and places to be walking around at night.

Anyone could be that one person to get harassed when walking after dark and anyone can prevent all of these things from happening.

Our peers are our enemies most of the time when it comes down to safety issues.
So girls, carry Mace and never walk alone.

Guys do not try to pick fights or think “this will never happen to me,” just because you are males.
These things happen every day on college campuses and I do not want it to be you.

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