When I first came home from college last year during Thanksgiving break, one of the things I was most excited about was hearing about my how my friends' experiences at their schools differed from mine. One of my best friends went to an extremely liberal school. When she told me that her school didn’t refer to the students as “freshmen” but rather, what I saw to be the more pretentious term, “first years,” I couldn't help but laugh.

Her school’s...quirk...became a running joke between the two of us that never failed to make me laugh….until my own school adopted the same policy.

More and more colleges are making the official change from referring to their first-year students as “freshmen” and going to the much more literal term “first year.”

From what I understand, the shift has occurred because of two major reasons.

First, the notion that the word “freshman” only implies the inclusion of women. This can be extended to the fact that today, in the year 2015, we have recognized that many people don’t classify themselves within the gender binary. This means that introducing a parallel term to freshman, such as freshwomen, would not be satisfactory because there is still the gender tag.

Secondly, the term freshman (probably due to the word “fresh”) seems to imply that these students are straight out of high school. There are more students today than ever before beginning college after taking a gap year or taking a job to finance a college education. The word fresh (out of high school) doesn’t accurately reflect who they are and their experiences.

I’m not entirely sure what I make of this change, which more and more schools are adopting. Some days I am all for it; other days it sounds like the one of the most ridiculous things I’ve heard and, to be honest, other days I couldn’t care less. Allow me to explain the problems I see with all of the attention (and controversy) that this shift is getting.

1. It diminishes the plight of feminism.

While 20 years ago feminism was strictly about women’s rights in relation to men, I think the notion of feminism has broadened. Feminism is about, in the year 2015, reaching equality for everyone, no matter if you identify as male, female or something else. Moreover, feminism is about so much more than gender inclusive terms. There is still a huge gap in wages for the same job between men and women in the United States, and huge disparities in opportunity and access to even the most basic necessities worldwide. When people say that this change is a huge win for feminism, it almost seems to mock what feminism is about. Perhaps it is a small step in the right direction, but this terminology change doesn’t deserve, at least on this platform, all the attention that it is garnering. You simply cannot change a term and claim that equality has been reached.

2. More girls go to college than boys.

This may seem obvious, but it is true. There simply are more women graduating from colleges and universities with bachelor's degrees than there are men. Why is this important? Because part of the rationale for the terminology change was to steer away from a term that wasn’t explicit about the inclusion of women. I know my university and my experiences aren’t representations of all schools in the country or everyone’s experiences, but I have never once felt marginalized or excluded on the basis of being a girl. It becomes hard, if even possible, for the majority group to feel excluded. I cannot speak to the reaction of the transgender community, but I would guess that this change is more important in that community considering the importance of correctness in gendered pronouns.

3. Are we trying to be too PC?

This is a question that has begun to emerge recently, and a question that I don’t really have an answer for. But I think there is some truth that today, more than ever, young adults and college students in particular are demanding or calling for terms that carry minimal risk of being offensive to anyone. This makes sense, considering that we are at our most liberal around college age. But the problem I see with this is that college students are mere years away from being thrust out into the “real world” where we will have to fight and slosh our way up from the bottom. We need to develop thick skin (not to say that there isn’t a time and place for sensitivity, because there obviously is), because the emotional protection that terms like first year may offer may not be as widespread outside of conscientious college communities.

(If you’re interested in reading more about political correctness and such in this day and age, check out this article--It is long but worth the read.)

Ultimately, the change from freshman to first year is just a microcosm in our social evolving world. The change won’t have a profound effect on my day-to-day experience as a college student. I think that like with most things, there are benefits and drawbacks. On one hand, now everyone who attends college is included in the term, just as they already were with the terms sophomore, junior and senior. But on the other hand, is the precedent that this small change represents dangerous? Is this change giving us an idealized version of where our nation (and our world) is today?