One month in the books and one campus is never going to be the same again.

If there could have been one word to describe the political environment at the College of Staten Island before this semester, a suitable word would have been: apathetic.

Having the thirst for liberty in my blood and having recently attended the Young Americans for Liberty National Convention, it was an easy decision to pursue starting a YAL chapter at my school.

Within the first week of school we had established a strong base of 10 members, a long e-mail list, and support from community organizations looking to see a politically active club get started at the College of Staten Island.

Our first major event was called "Remembering the Constitution" and it happened within our first week of being an official group. Needless to say, the administration was very surprised at our eagerness.

We had two free speech walls that had students come up and express themselves in many different ways. We were further equipped with a microphone, speakers, and a table loaded with constitutions. Various students came up and exercised their first amendment rights while YAL members raised awareness about the ignorance towards the constitution by our elected officials.

Effectively, all 200 constitutions supplied by YAL were passed out and our sign up sheets were filling up.

"I'm surprised to see a politically active group like this on campus, keep it up." One student said to us.

And so we did, less than a week later we Visualized the Debt.

"That's a lot of numbers" was a popular statement we heard.

No kidding -- 14 trillion dollars will force you to use a lot of posterboards.

By the end of the day our e-mail list grew to over 200 subscribers and the awareness we raised about the national debt forced students to think about it, rather than just ignore it as figures Congress is handling and won't effect us.

When we were done our message was delivered:

Face it now, or pay for it later.

Our plans remain big for the remainder of the semester. October will be busy, and November should be the busiest month of all if we continue to follow through on our plans like we have thus far.

And we will, because liberty cannot wait.