The university should be a safe place where people are living in a calm environment full of single-minded people who are interested in the same and only activity – studying. It should be built for the students and that means there are not allowed any other people who did not pay tuition fees and therefore are not able to be present at the lectures.
In fact, I am scared most of the time by passing from Hendon Central to my university. It is just a few minute walk but when I am alone around 8pm I do not feel safe. My friend who is a non-student used to spend his free time sitting next to me at my late lectures and no one really noticed and, in fact, no one really cared.
People could be scared of strangers and even though I know him many years, I am not sure if he is not able to have a fight with someone or even worse – to kill. And that is the problem. People are bringing their friends with them, directly to the campus and sometimes they even do not know them very well.
When my friend used to study at the same university, she called a stranger to come to pick her up from the campus as she was trying to find friends in a new city. She wanted to stay with him in a campus because she thought it was a safe place where she is protected, therefore if the meeting would go wrong she would shout and someone from the university could help her.
What I am trying to say is that even though university will provide better security for us, it is people who are making it worse. We are bringing strangers here, we are putting other people in risk and we are creating an unsafe environment.
While thinking of possible problems, there are also real ways of improving it. Although, it is very hard to say what improvements will help to build safer place than the university is now. Checking of social media and e-mails was a good idea, but then when you think about it further, it is so disrespectful when someone is checking what you are doing and where you have been in the past hours when you have not done anything wrong.
I would continue with saying that it is more of a prison than academic institution which is ready to help you achieve your dreams and build professions. When thinking of a university, I always imagine safe place with single-minded and intelligent people who would never steal anything nor kill someone.
The article by Nico Perrino from The Guardian is saying that Harvard University is monitoring one´s social media and e-mails and therefore they know what is going on. They are checking exact words in one´s conversation what leads them to the theory that people using these words are planning some kind of crime.
On one side, it is perfect solution because nowadays people are communicating via social media more than ever before and also the person who is planning some sort of a crime will tell about it to his friends or siblings and he will most probably use social media. He will possibly try to find some guns online and therefore university can stop crime in the early beginnings. However, I am not sure if this is effective method of providing better security at universities.
On the other hand, prevention is the best method in order to get safe environment where people are equal and no one is planning any crime or anything wrong which can cause him problems not only for few months but for his whole life.
People need to care about the place where students want to live in peaceful and calm environment because they paid lots of money at least for that feeling. We all should be more responsible for what is going on behind the lecture´s doors.