There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a nerd

So you’re sitting in your 9.05am lecture, laptop open on your desk, latte (that you probably should have made a triple) in hand. Your eyes shift back and forth between your professor and the seemingly frozen clock while you pray you won’t be chosen to discuss the readings you hardly glanced over last night.

A low grumble escapes your stomach and you realize you completely forgot to eat breakfast. Not only that, but you have two more classes to sit through before you’ll get a spare moment for lunch. Then, you should probably stop by Davis and get started on your 8-page research paper due next week…but only after you’ve managed to find time to study for the midterm you have on Friday.

At this point, you have all but entirely disengaged from your current lecture. That is, until your professor finally says something important to you.

You sit up in your seat and readjust your legs. Your eyes narrow on your professor and you forget about the clock on the wall. The words you’re hearing suddenly have more meaning, and instead of opening up a tab for Facebook, you’re Googling the subject of the lecture to learn more.

Congratulations, you’ve become a nerd.

In my three semesters here at UNC, I’ve had these moments in some of the most unexpected classes. No one could have prepared me for how interested I would be in learning about Eskimos in Anthropology or how impassioned I would feel reading poems written by no-name authors in English. Instead of stifling my newfound nerdiness, though, I embraced it wholeheartedly.

But what does being a so-called nerd even mean? While formerly used to describe those who are “boringly studious,” the label currently gets thrown around in reference to those who genuinely care about any subject at all. Frankly, being passionate is being nerdy.

Messed up, right?

But isn’t passion what gives purpose to someone’s life? Isn’t it what sets the world in motion? Without it, wouldn’t we all just be aimlessly going through the motions of survival? Yes, yes and yes.

In a world that labels mild apathy as cool and utter neutrality as acceptable, be the nerd. We were not meant to be lukewarm in our existence. We were meant to be passionate. We were meant to be nerds.

Go ahead and take that obscure class to finish out your Gen Eds. Don’t be alarmed when your ears perk up at the mention of something new in your early morning lecture. Forget about being indifferent toward what you’re learning.

Simply put, stop being afraid of being a nerd.