I feel like some college students have so much extra time on their hands, and I don’t understand why. I mean, I consider myself to be a really busy young woman that needs to find time for everything from classes and homework, my job, to finding time to spend with my boyfriend, family, and friends. I’m a strong believer that if you really want to do something you’ll find time for it, but what I’m not sure about is how some college students actually find the time to do meaningless and frivolous things.

I’m a sophomore at Boston University, and I feel like I always have a 40-page reading assignment, 5+ page papers due, or an exam to study for. So, how is it that another Boston University student has the time to create a pointless website? I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but ratebu.com is a website where BU students get to vote on which girl looks “hotter” (two pictures are posted side by side). Some of these girls don’t even know that they are on the site because they don’t have to give their consent. All you have to do to get someone’s picture on the website is to type in their name and submit a picture, which you can easily get from Facebook.

I think that this is mean, because obviously if you have a low ranking you’re going to feel bad and it will hurt your self-esteem. I also find it to be unfair because the option of whether or not to be featured on the site really isn’t yours. I think that the Boston University student who started this website needs to get it together, and instead of looking for girls on Facebook he should be studying for finals.

Coming up with a solution to this issue can be really hard, especially because the person submitting your photo may or may not be your friend on Facebook. There probably isn’t a way to stop your Facebook friends from submitting your picture, but maybe you can just tell them not to and you will be okay. You can prevent people who are not your friend on Facebook from getting a hold of your picture by setting your profile and photos to private and changing your profile picture to an image of something else. It might not work, but it’s a suggestion. What do you think are some other ways to prevent this from happening?

On that note, good luck on your finals!

-Erica