One of my favorite episodes of "Seinfeld" is the one with the "bubble boy." In this episode, George and Elaine agree to meet with Donald, a sickly boy who is put in a bubble to be protected from germs from the outside world. Somehow, George ends up in a fight with Donald over a misprinted word, yadda yadda yadda ... the bubble gets popped as George and Donald duke it out.

Lately, I have been feeling stuck inside my own bubble -- Brandeis. While nowhere near as constricting as Donald's bubble, it can still be considered a shield from the outside world. Being on a campus, totally removed from normal civilization, makes reality seem like a faraway vision. All our needs are provided for us within the campus' radius. Just the other day, I was able to go to the ATM, drop off my dry cleaning and mail a letter at the post office without even leaving Usdan. But, more importantly, the issue is how much we wish to let the bubble that a campus provides be the basis of our daily lives.

The truth is, I actually enjoy being stuck inside this bubble most of the time. For four years, we are given the opportunity to live in a world comprised strictly of our peers, professors and various other staff. Our main job is to learn, academically, socially and emotionally, and everyone employed by the University is here to help us do that. We are coddled, advised and protected. I appreciate this life as a stepping stone to the real world.

Yet, Brandeis is a fake microcosm of the real world, and I often wonder if I am getting sufficient preparation to be able to step into real life. It is no secret that Brandeis lacks diversity in many aspects. A majority of Brandeis students come from similar backgrounds, many sharing the same religion, social class and race. Therefore, many of our views and prior experiences are relatively similar. For example, as debates calling for universities to divest from Israel rage across this country, Brandeis students are protected from anything of this sort. As a university where much of the student population is pro-Israel, we are unaware of the raw anger and emotion that is facing many of our peers at other universities. Perhaps it would be helpful if our views were challenged.

The clich "the more things change, the more they stay the same" seems fitting for Brandeis. Most of the lives we lead are quite routine, and even though there are drastic changes occurring daily all over the world, we need not concern ourselves with them. Instead, we have our own worlds to worry about -- worlds more significant to us than what goes on outside our campus' borders.

Academically, there are ups and downs to the "bubble life" of Brandeis. We are given the opportunity to immerse ourselves in a scholarly, stimulating environment in which questioning, exploring, and learning are highly encouraged. However, one of the best aspects of classroom education is applying it to life. Are we stifled from doing this at Brandeis? Even though our campus is within a community, and we are only twenty minutes from Boston, very few of us take full advantage and venture into the "real world" daily, or even weekly.

And so, as we progress through this year at Brandeis, and throughout our four years, we are faced with the bubble dilemma. Personally, I find it difficult to mix Brandeis with the real world. More and more, I see the stark differences between these two worlds. Perhaps it is an age thing; as we get older, we start to outgrow the Brandeis bubble. Nonetheless, it remains confusing trying to find a balance between the two.

On "Seinfeld," George burst Donald's protective bubble in a fit of rage. Within a minute, the protection that Donald had relied on his whole life was gone. Although on "Seinfeld" this scene was hysterical, I do not think in real life we can burst our Brandeis bubbles so quickly. Rather, throughout our four years, we should slowly venture into the huge and overwhelming bubble of the real world. While it will be difficult, we should relish the challenges of no longer always having a protective shield upon which to fall back. Therefore, when we graduate, unlike the bubble boy, we will be able to embrace the complexity of life, rather than try to retreat into yet another bubble.

-- Samantha Slater '05 submits a

column to the Justice.