Ladies and Gentlemen of Saint Louis University’s Class of 2012: Welcome to your blank slate.

That’s right, a glorious “tabula rasa” awaits you, and your college life is beginning. High school is encased in yearbooks, scrapbooks and memory boxes. You and your families have dropped a metric ton of cash on room, board, parking, texts and tuition. And now, you’re moving in, getting oriented and getting on with adult life.

Just as this is a new beginning for the SLU community, ongoing and neophyte members alike, it is also a new beginning for our nation. For all undergraduate U.S. citizens, except for some of this year’s seniors, this November will present the first opportunity we have had to vote in a presidential election. We finally get the chance to stretch our political muscles and cast our ballots with the rest of our nation’s taxpayers.

But this freedom comes with responsibility. If a blank slate remains untouched, it communicates nothing. You have the responsibility to develop your will and do something. Potential unused is potential wasted. Only if you assign meaning to your vote and to your new life can it actually represent something.

So, start educating yourself now. Don’t wait until the day of elections to make up your mind.

Stand up-that’s right, get off of the chair-walk to the nearest computer with an Internet connection and look up all the political candidates you’re able to vote for-without stopping to check in on facebook. Trawl through backgrounds, issues and initiatives. Think critically and decide on a stance. Debate with your roommates, and then remake it again if necessary. Know what you think, and why you think it.

But don’t stop there, take it a step further. Get out of the dorm room. Do not get comfortable: laugh, play, flirt, study, run, volunteer, converse, argue, bike, explore. Buck up, drive your apprehension into a corner and expand your mind.

SLU students, welcome to the real world. It doesn’t start when we graduate; it starts now. Get out there. Build your community and build your country, one slate-mark at a time.