By Trisha Barker
There”s nothing worse than buying something and not getting your money”s worth.
I call it the Yoplait syndrome. Allow me to explain.
Like most college students, I”m on a tight budget that allows for little more than bulk cereal, milk, noodles and spaghetti sauce. Every now and then I splurge to make home-cooked tacos or pizza, but other than that, I stick to the basics.
There”s only one thing I go all out for every week: Yoplait yogurt. There”s no other yogurt like it. I buy 4-6 cups a week, whether it”s 40 cents a cup or 60.
There”s just one thing about Yoplait that gets to me. There you are, eating along, minding your own business, and all of a sudden that ridge at the top of your cup jumps out and sucks half the yogurt underneath, never to see the light of day again. No matter how hard you scrape and reposition your spoon, you will never get the full six ounces you buy.
I could understand if they were recycling the plastic canisters and wanted to save that ounce to reuse it, but let”s face it: that ridge has nothing to do with saving money. It”s there to keep good, honest people like us coming back for more.
I don”t know about you, but it works for me.
You”d think after four years of Yoplait I”d get used to the whole thing and stop complaining about something so trivial. But last week, as I began to reflect on my time here at BYU, I realized the Yoplait syndrome applies to more than just yogurt. It applies to life — especially in college.
Tuition may be cheap, but paying for school is a sacrifice, especially if you”re the one who”s footing the bill. No matter how much you pay for school, you should try to get the most out of it, so that years down the road you”re not left wishing you would have gotten more out of your college ”cup.”
Learning, specifically, should keep us coming back for more. I”ll be the first to admit I don”t always approach my classes with perfect zeal, but over the years I have learned to appreciate a wide variety of subjects, even those that are not personally applicable.
I”m grateful for my freshman biology class and the information I learned about the makeup of the human body. I”m grateful for American Heritage 100 and the respect I gained for the Founding Fathers of this country. And I”m especially grateful for my child development class, which taught me more about parenting than anything but real-life experience ever could.
Without respect and appreciation for varying subjects, it is hard to relate to those around us and live responsible lives as citizens of this and other countries. I”m not suggesting you spend your life studying a subject that doesn”t interest you, but be grateful for the well-rounded experience you get at BYU and use it to enhance the future.
It”s sad that often you don”t realize what you”ve got until you”ve almost lost it. There”s so much more I could have gained had I taken my early classes seriously.
When I walk across the stage in April to accept my diploma, I hope I will leave wanting more. Regardless of whether I obtain a masters or doctorate degree, I hope I will have learned to love truth and knowledge and appreciate it for more than its face value.
I”m sure I”ll still be complaining about the injustices of Yoplait packaging, but at least I won”t be saying: “I should have scraped the cup a little closer.”
