This summer reality hit me hard. I am a senior who will graduate from Bowdoin College in less than a year and enroll in Real Life 101, Paying Rent 115, Buying and Cooking My Own Food 102 and Getting a Job in a Jobless Economy 205. Needless to say, I was excited to enjoy one last year of easy living and scholarly studies here in beautiful Brunswick, Maine.

Near the end of the summer, I received an e-mail regarding one of Bowdoin's new green initiatives. I have taken Introduction to Environmental Studies and Distinguished Lecturer of Environmental Studies Dewitt John's Climate, Air Quality and Energy Policy class, and I am in fact scared s**tless by climate change.

I turn off my lights, I don't own a car, and I don't want my parents third story apartment in Lower East Side Manhattan to end up as the ground floor along the East River in American Venice (although that would not be the worse scenario). Thus I am proud that my alma mater will likely be carbon neutral by 2020.

However, when I heard I was to receive only 750 pages of free printing this semester and the rest was going to cost me a nice five to 30 cents per page (depending on color, sides, etc.), I was upset and confused. Will charging students for printing really help save the world, or was it just a sneaky way to increase my tuition?

So I did some math. Without considering the three other classes I am taking, I will need 755 pages by November 18 for one class alone this semester. As a government major and history minor, I print out a minimum of 100 pages per week. At that rate, those 750 pages would last until about mid-October. Therefore, I will have to pay for another seven weeks of printing. That means roughly 700 pages paid for out of my pocket, which will cost me an extra $50 or $60.

Not everyone is a government major though, and some classes require less printing. So let's say that the average student needs 75 pages per week. 75 pages over the 14 weeks of the semester add up to 1,050 pages, 300 printed pages over the limit. With standard double-sided printing at eight cents a pop, each student will pay the equivalent of an extra $24 each semester, which translates to $48 per year. That means the college will earn $85,296 off its 1,777 students from printing out academic readings and assignments.

Charging for printing is only going to inconvenience students and their wallets. I've always printed readings and covered them with enough shiny yellow highlights to fit in with Cali surfer bros, and I don't plan on stopping now. I do not own a Kindle (and won't unless Bowdoin would like to buy me one as part of its green initiative), and I'm not interested in wearing glasses because my school wanted me to do all my readings on a computer screen. I spend enough time staring at my computer screen already.

Perhaps teachers could assign fewer pages of reading. I know professors are already working hard, but they could break articles up instead of assigning them in their entirety, leaving only the most crucial material.

Let's turn off some lights at night in the Union, turn down the heat a little in the winter, take down those crazy overhead lights in Thorne Hall, grow some major vines on the first year bricks, farm cattle on the Quad, maybe even take away a TV or two from the Union. Just don't take away my free printing.

Simon Fischweicher is a member of the Class of 2011.