During the summer, I learned that a friend of mine had scheduled an appointment with a plastic surgeon to learn more about rhinoplasties, also known as nose jobs. This surprised me. There was nothing visibly wrong with my friend's nose, and I did not see her as an individual who might consider plastic surgery at such a young age. For the most part, I had believed plastic surgery to be for individuals in a midlife crisis or for individuals who had been severely injured or maimed.

It turns out that my earlier belief was very wrong. According to a Sept. 7 article in The Huffington Post by Vivian Diller, many high school students are choosing to undergo cosmetic surgery, often with the goal of socially preparing themselves for college. While boys are looking at otoplasties, or ear jobs, girls are considering breast augmentation or rhinoplasties. The article also cites data from the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, which states that 15 percent of all cosmetic surgery procedures in 2010 were performed on patients under 21. Patients under 18 require parental consent, but it is likely that any patient under 21 would require some financial assistance to undergo elective surgery, which would mean a very significant degree of parental involvement in the decision.

This information is shocking. Many of these students likely undergo cosmetic procedures prior to entering their first year of college, with the expectation that a new look will make them more appealing to their classmates. The article from The Huffington Post described students who underwent surgery during the summer before college.

The timing allowed them to have the surgery completed in time for freshman year and avoid judgment from their high school peers who would recognize the alteration. In these students' minds, entering college without a straightened nose or smaller ears would hinder their ability to fit in and make friends.

However, this method of preparation seems to be logically backwards. College is a time for students to find friends who accept them as they are, both physically and emotionally. With these friends, students can feel confident in their own social group and with themselves. By undergoing cosmetic procedures, students do not learn to be comfortable with their appearance and instead develop the belief that one must look a certain way in order to be socially accepted. It also brings up the question of whether these new friends would have accepted the student had he or she not had surgery. Ideally, the friends that one chooses would accept him or her regardless.

At Brandeis, we should do our best to foster a community in which students don't feel inferior to others because of how they look. Recently, I learned of an unusual incident that contradicts this mentality. During Orientation, my friend who was an Orientation Leader was approached by a member of a sorority. The sorority member asked for the name of one specific girl in my friend's AIDE group with the intent of recruiting this girl to the sorority. My friend later told me how disturbed she was by the sorority's action, mentioning that she believed the girl could only have been recruited so early in the year on the basis of her physical appearance. Although this type of behavior is rare at Brandeis, it is an effective representation of the judgments that we should seek to avoid. Furthermore, it indicates that Brandeis does have room to improve itself in this capacity.

Taking action to change our behavior is critical. To create this change, we must confirm for ourselves that we look beyond someone's physical appearance when we make social decisions. Such a confirmation involves reflection about how we go about choosing our friends and how we make judgments about others. I am confident that the Brandeis student body is capable of this.

The frenzy of cosmetic surgery is an alarming trend that suggests a shift in personal values. Physical appearance is becoming more highly valued than personality and talent.

I imagine that most people would claim to believe that "looks aren't everything" in a person. Now is the time to definitively act on those words.