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Oxford and 'real world' mentalities clash

Mary Halling, hallinml@muohio.edu

Walking past a table with unattended purses, jackets or backpacks is not an uncommon thing at Miami University.

While I am just as guilty as anyone, it still strikes me that we are so comfortable with leaving our (sometimes prized) possessions unattended. A friend described it as an unwritten rule: if someone stole your backpack, you would be upset, so why make someone else feel that way?

This friend also happens to have lived in China, Nigeria and Belgium, where he insisted someone's things would be stolen within minutes of it being unwatched in any of those places. This makes me wonder, why do we feel so safe? Why are we so surprised when someone's laptop actually does get stolen out of an unlocked residence hall room? Should we be more careful?

Growing up in the New York City area, I was always taught to be mindful of where all my belongings were at all times.

If I was riding the subway in Manhattan or taking the aboveground train to high school, my bag was on my shoulder or in my lap. As a first-year at Miami, I carried these teachings with me, not wanting to leave my bag on my chair in King Library when I went to the cafe or leave my room open when I ran to the bathroom. Call it paranoia or call it safety, but I haven't had anything stolen during my time at Miami.

That being said, the seemingly safe atmosphere here at Miami broke down my conventions somewhat. My first-year class, 2007-08, had the highest rate of burglaries and robberies among the four years (2006-10) reported in the Campus Crime Alert archives.

Even after that, my close friends and I developed the mentality that "it couldn't happen to me." Our window in our house sophomore year did not ever close, but it was okay because we lived far from campus and our doors were always locked.

No crimes were reported from King or Shriver, so it was okay to leave our laptops and iPods out on the table while we left to get another coffee. Even with the notifications from the Campus Crime Alert system, it seems other Miamians adhere to this mentality too — from unattended belongings at King or Shriver to unlocked room doors.

Unfortunately, I believe it was the development of this mentality that led to my careless mistake in March. I am infatuated with traveling and seeing the world, so I jumped at the opportunity to go to Brussels, Belgium for spring break to stay with a good friend while she was studying abroad. I was traveling on a student budget, so I obviously took every price shortcut possible.

I flew into Heathrow Airport in London and took a train into Brussels. At the end of the trip, I was waiting for my train at Brussels-Midi train station, me and my friend saying our goodbyes, when a man came up and asked us for directions.

He seemed pretty sketchy, so I quickly turned away from him and back to my friend. In doing so, I lost sight of my luggage that was standing right next to me. The next thing I knew, I heard the faint brush of two fabrics against one another. I looked back, and my purse was gone.

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My purse that had my passport, money, driver's license and keys to my house in Oxford was gone, and I was stuck in Belgium for two extra days before everything was sorted out.

It no longer "couldn't happen to me." It did happen to me. Of course, I was not in Oxford when it happened, but I was still operating under the "unwritten rule" mentality. We often comment on the "Oxford bubble" and how everything within it seems to exist independent of the world outside. As students who are in college to learn and to prepare for the "real world," we need to realize all things are not as safe as they are in Oxford.

Appreciate this relatively safe bubble, but keep your guard up. Remember when you travel outside of Oxford not everyone is a student in the same financial boat you are, and they are not necessarily abiders of the unwritten rule.