Black Friday, how much are these deals worth?

By Josephine McLaughlin

Are these deals that great if we may have to pay for the environmental and fiscal repercussions later?

Friday, November 29th. The day after Thanksgiving, famously known as Black Friday. For years this has been an event that causes the uprise of many opinions. Many love the day, many hate it. It is right after Thanksgiving, a day we are supposed to be thankful and reflect on all we have. Then the next day we go and splurge and indulge in a frenzy for things we most likely don’t need. A valid reason to cause some to look down on the day.

The National Retail Federation had expected 165 million people to shop in stores and online this Black Friday shopping weekend. They then reported it was actually it was more than 174 million Americans that shopped through Cyber Monday. This information beating their original prediction. This means that 70 percent of American adults were shopping this Thanksgiving weekend.

To reference Americans and their heightened case of the “gimmes” in relation to this day after Thanksgiving, it was said that the average person spent $335 on their shopping ventures. Not including millennials whose averaged a $419.52 per person according to The Washington Post. These stats definitely would fuel the fire for anyone who feels any negativity towards this shopping event. Grandmothers around the world are reading these numbers and shaking their heads and saying “you should have stayed at home” to their grandchildren, don’t you think?

However, this year, there is another reason to boycott this “shopping holiday” that seems to be screaming louder than the others.

Sustainability.

As much as these sales beckoned any and all deal seekers, they also caused an uprising in environmental activist. According to NBC News, even in France, there were protests against this weekend shopping event. They were calling out Amazon and other companies. They protested outside Amazon’s main facility in Paris.

Some people in Germany that work for Amazon even went on strike for better pay!

The reasoning behind these nationwide protests from New York to Paris was due to the belief that consumerism is destroying the planet. Many think that as great as the deals are from this weekend holiday shopping event are, the negative impact is much greater.

These factors bring us to wonder, are these amazing Black Friday deals at a greater cost? We may be getting things at a cheap price now, but then we might be paying for them later in the possible repercussions.

Homeschooler in the Real World

Emma Folts, a sophomore at Wheaton College, shares her experience about her transition into college and how homeschool has both helped and hindered her.
How has your homeschool experience benefitted you, especially in your transition into college?
I think the one thing that homeschooling did that was really helpful as I entered college was that it taught me time management. As a homeschooler I had the same freedom as a college student has to put things off during the day and go see a friend instead. Since I had that experience, I knew the cost of that.
Also, personal responsibility and accountability with assignments. I feel like a lot of the other students had more expectations for gentler grading and that the professor would give them retakes or extensions, but that wasn’t something that ever happened to me in school. That learning curve wasn’t added because I never had it the other way. I think another thing was that because I was homeschooled, I was familiar with the format of teaching and then studying on my own.
Did you see any issues with your transition socially?
I think that homeschooling had two ramifications for me socially. One was helpful, one was hurtful.
It was really helpful because as a homeschooler, I had spent a lot of time realizing and developing who I was as a person and learning to recognize people who were being themselves, and those were the people I sought out as friends. Friendship as a homeschooler takes a lot more investment. I knew I was choosier with my friends which made me a lot less anxious and a lot more content.
The only real negative impact of the social bit was that I was really used to getting to choose the time I got to spend with people. As a homeschooler I spent a lot of time with people, but that time was controlled by me. As a college student, I found that you can’t really control the time you spend with people and alone time is not really available. Learning to deal with that was a lot harder than anticipated.
Any last comments on homeschool and how it has affected your college experience?
I think homeschooling is really helpful, however it does take a slightly increased amount of advocacy with your peers when you’re entering into college. I think a lot of people come in with certain assumptions about homeschool, especially students. You’re going to get a lot of, ‘oh my gosh, you don’t seem like a homeschooled person!’ [You can’t] take that too personally and explain your experience so that friends can understand it’s an important piece of you, though it might not look like the homeschooling that they’ve seen.
My encouragement to anyone who is a homeschooler transitioning into college is to realize the benefit that you have having been homeschooled, and to realize that the bit of advocacy and explaining that you need to do with your peers is totally normal and that it’s not a big deal. Once they understand your experience, it’s not something I’ve experienced being looked down on for.