In the midst of packing for my return to school and relishing the last few days I had to spend at home with my family, the Civil Rights leader Julian Bond passed away. Learning about what happened through all the different media outlets, news of his death was also mentioned on the official Brandeis Twitter account. While at first I wondered why exactly this was relevant to Brandeis, diving further into some of the links led me to realize that he had visited our campus only a few months prior as a Richman Fellow.

I recall passing by a few posters announcing his visit and the subsequent talk he was going to give and really thought nothing of it at the time. I was busy with classwork and other extracurriculars, so I didn’t bother to take the time to listen to him speak or even look into who this guy was and what he was doing here. Merely noticing that he shared his last name with one of the best characters of cinematic history, I would stroll past the posters on my way to class or the library.

Only after his passing did I learn of Bond’s contribution to our country. Part of the collective struggle to gain civil rights for African Americans during the 1960s, Bond was one of the founders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) while still a student in college. Beyond being ashamed that I didn’t give myself the opportunity to hear Bond speak when he was on campus, I grew amazed by the amount of work he put into advancing the cause of civil rights at such a young age. Adding onto the work he did for SNCC and the Civil Rights Movement, Bond was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives at the age of 25, achieving something that completely amazes me, only four years younger now than he was then.

So many times in my travels across Wikipedia, I’ve come across people who have accomplished great things who are younger than me. Be it 16-year-olds who compete in the Olympics or 18-year-olds who have recorded their own critically-acclaimed albums, I wind up feeling insignificant for being like any other 21-year-old who’s going to college. Yet there’s a certain sense of perspective that needs to be taken into account when exposed to these prodigies, which isn’t meant to put other people down.

Instead, as college students we should look to these folk as inspiration to complete our dreams and goals. Someone like Julian Bond should be looked at as the reason we should still try to make the world a better place despite what our age might say or the obstacles that seem to be blocking the path there.

While some of the exact issues Bond was fighting for might have changed, there are still a vast number of injustices in our country and around the world that need to be addressed. Whatever cause needs to be supported, it will be respected and represented at Brandeis—a fact that makes me proud to attend this school. And it is not simply setting up a table asking for donations that is occurring here. The opening of the Rape Crisis Center last semester is a perfect example of a group of students actively changing this school and, in turn, our society for the better by helping to stop the spread of sexual misconduct on college campuses. These students who contributed to the founding of the RCC are more than heroes; they are inspirations to the rest of us to help improve our culture and society to the point where everyone can feel that they are valuable members.

Perhaps if I stopped into the talk Bond gave I would have heard these sentiments, how anything can be accomplished as long as we keep focused on the end product or how the student activists here are extremely brave to be fighting for what they believe in. But I was preoccupied with my own issues at the time, which are admittedly chump change compared to what else is going on in the world. We should all take a moment to see what else is going on around us to learn something new or become more involved with an issue.

That’s the beauty of attending Brandeis; whether you like it or not, you will become more aware of injustices, and therefore become more likely to be involved in fighting at least one. While spending time with my friends from high school over the summer and hearing about the schools they attend, I’ve grown to realize that Brandeis is different from other institutions. Maybe they just didn’t let on to what issues were being addressed on their campus. Still, I felt a little odd to be having conversations that didn’t address at least one societal flaw today. That isn’t the case here at Brandeis, and it feels good to be back in a climate where those discussions are encouraged.