For New Vegan Arrivals - Being and becoming - a smart campus vegan
Optimizing one's college years for an effective vegan future of transformative living

Being vegan has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with comfort foods, faux foods, or vegan beer. Don’t be hoodwinked into the many side traps of comfort foods, ineffective welfarism, and other distractions.

Being vegan relates to
(a) principles (which one REALLY believes, not merely which one MIGHT - in a perfect world - LIKE or WISH to believe) and
(b) corresponding behaviors (nothing chosen in difficulty may evidence a profound disbelief).

With the abolitionists, one can only stand, in time (as we see it over time to be most true) with the commitment to CHANGE the world for the better by abolishing ALL animal exploitation and abuse, BEGINNING with the abolition of all animal agriculture (and animal breeding).

I.
Choosing a MAJOR OF STUDY is core to being a vegan in college - a vegan 'of the college class - and one must ASK a core question (attributed to a Professor now at Michigan State University):
"Can we live by our values?"

Choosing a MAJOR OF STUDY is a challenge, and one (if one is TRULY vegan - from the inside out, not merely circumstantially vegan) must ask how can my vegan values be expressed professionally in a transformative or transformational way in human history?

II.
A vegan of the college persuasion then begins NETWORKING VEGAN-ly by
(a) presenting herself or himself to the local vegetarian and animal rights groups, local Veg(etari)an Meetups, and animal rights groups (noting that 'we are students, and that's where are energies MUST be focused, but we COULD develop some synergies if you have 'programs' that can support us in our work, to help us provide continuity from year-to-year and beyond graduation)
(b) joining one or more campus groups (or helping to form one, if there is none already - perhaps one died because all the students were graduated) and making that campus group functional, viable, and survivable (beyond one's OWN graduation; most campus groups seem to die after a freshman class, which RAN the group year-after-year succeeded in finishing their studies at that school, then they dumped the group - de facto - by leaving it without a leadership team to continue their on-campus work).

It's not about food or the dining hall, BUT food or the dining hall are (only) PART of what campus organizing is about.

Campus veganism should prepare ALL of us for transformational leadership while in school and for our professional careers and personal lives after our graduation. Faculty should discover how to look to us for insights, and whatever it takes to 'make connections for plant-based diets' DURING college and graduate school is what the campus veg*an groups should struggle to realize, to authenticate, and to make effective.