It happens almost every day – I sit down in the cafeteria to munch my delicious Subway footlong Spicy Italian, and the television above my table starts blaring the most god-awful music. I hate MTVU, and I would rather have the loud, abrasive MTVU music cycle removed and replaced with just about anything else. It is not enough, however, just to decide whether or not NEIU students like it. Which channel would NEIU choose to replace MTVU? I decided to ask around, and see what other students thought about it.
“Why not ESPN?” asks Jeremy, a sophomore. “Since it’s almost baseball season, I’d love to be able to sit down and catch the scores.” This sentiment was echoed by others at his table. “Why not just switch it to whatever game is on? If the Cubs are playing, put that on. If it’s the Sox, put that on. Everybody’s happy.” While I thought that was a great idea, not everyone else agreed.
“I hate sports even more than I hate MTVU,” lamented Dora, a junior. Other people I asked felt the same way—they don’t like watching sports and would prefer something else. “Like what?” I asked. Many drew blanks, but Dora suggested having a news station running. “Why not CNN or MSNBC?” wondered Jermaine, a senior, “There’s so much going on right now in the world and in contemporary politics that students could be engaged and be interested in,” he continued. As a side note, I noticed and appreciated that Fox News was never suggested as a serious news source by people advocating news stations for NEIU’s cafeteria TVs.
Not everyone I spoke to disliked MTVU. Some I spoke to actually enjoyed the music being played, while others really didn’t care because they tuned it out automatically. Personally, I loved both of the ideas for station changes. I love the idea of sitting down to lunch and catching a couple innings of a Cubs game, but when the Cubs aren’t on—or maybe when the Sox are playing—we can change the channel and follow the election coverage on MSNBC or see what’s going on in the world on CNN. We need not and should not be bound to one channel. Please NEIU, let us think outside the box and try other kinds of entertainment for our cafeteria.