Evaluating financial priorities of students

By Roxana Samano
The Collegian

IN THIS SUPERFICIAL world we live in, I have realized how important it is for a lot of us to make a good impression.

I personally think that it’s a great thing to want to impress our peers, but I believe that sometimes people go above and beyond trying to send a good impression to others, so much so that we actually lose a piece of ourselves during this process.

For example, many of the adolescent girls that I see, both on and off campus, find it essential to carry a name brand handbag, such as Coach, Chanel, Burberry or Louis Vouitton.

While I honestly don’t find anything wrong with these designers, it cracks me up to hear how some of these people would rather have a faux designer bag just to impress people.

What is the message we are sending out here? If you can’t afford to buy the real deal name brands, buy a faux handbag for a fraction of the cost simply as an illusion to others, making them aware that you can afford something in the higher-end scale?

On the other hand people, especially college students, have a hard time shelling out their rent money when it’s due, or making excuses that they don’t have enough money for groceries this week.

When it comes to shopping, especially for handbags or a good-looking attire, however, they suddenly find a way to overcome that financial struggle.

A main part of this is that it is hard for us to pick out clothing without a name brand attached to it.

Everywhere we go, it seems like advertisement is swaying us to go the other route and pay more for a certain brand in order to get a "look."

So my question then becomes why buy faux? If we can’t afford designer brands, then why send the message to others that we can indeed afford the finer things in life?

Perhaps it is because the majority of people that we run into in a given day will only see us for a couple seconds, so it really doesn’t matter what they think of us.

Still, we must care what people think about us if we are willing to give them a different impression.
So, are we essentially going above and beyond trying to make a good impression on our peers and ourselves?

Another prime example of this idea is watching people in the school parking lot driving around on their 20’s with pimped out cars trying to show everyone their financial stature.

What we fail to see time and time again is the debt that those people could potentially be in. It would not make sense for us to drive our brand new Cadillac with the receipt flying out the window, informing everyone that we have committed ourselves to years and years of monthly payments.

In essence, I feel it is good for us to strive to be better people and try to show our communities that side of us everyday.

I’m just not so sure that pretending to be what we are not is the right way to go.

Roxana Samano is a senior majoring in mass communication and journalism with an option in print journalism.

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