Free are the T-shirts and pens that everyone runs over to the Siebel Center to get during career fairs. Free are the cheap products that people look forward to every year during the Engineering Open House. Free are the scrumptious samples from the yummy restaurants on Green Street.

With Uni’s location in the heart of the U of I’s engineering campus, Uni students are surrounded by offerings of free stuff. And it seems that we are definitely taking full advantage of this nice perk.

But perhaps we are becoming a bit too greedy. I remember people being at least 20 minutes late to class just to get a free sandwich. Some others spent their entire free periods in a seemingly endless line streaming out of Chipotle to get a huge free burrito that doesn’t even fit in people’s mouths.

It has gotten to the point where Assistant Principal Sue Kovacs gets complaints about Uni students' free-stuff hoarding habits, as kids scramble between EOH stands trying to stuff as many free things in their new free bag as possible.

So what is up with this frenzy? I mean, I won’t pretend that every time I see or hear the word "free" I turn and walk in the opposite direction. There is often a spark in my mind when someone mentions free stuff. However, many people's reactions are much more severe.

I just don’t think standing in line for 20 minutes is worth a free burrito. You might as well just buy lunch somewhere else, and the 20 minutes saved would almost be as satisfactory as the free meal.

And grabbing a poop-green T-shirt just because it's free? While once in a while the free clothing might actually be worth taking, usually the items are ugly and stupid. It just seems that people are so blind to this fact because the stuff is free.

Although these free shirts might actually have a bright future as PE clothes, I just wish people would refrain from taking stuff that they probably are not going to use. I mean, there has got to be a better way to spend your time than nabbing knick-knacks at the Siebel job fairs.