I’m currently the president of the local chapter of Sigma Xi (an honor society, not a fraternity, thankyouverymuch), and as such have been collecting RSVP’s and dues for this year’s new inductees. As part of this process, I’ve been struck by how many students don’t have checks– I’ve had a couple of students give me cash, one cashier’s check from a local bank, a couple of checks drawn on parental accounts, and one check from the roommate of a nominee.
The first couple, I wrote off as individual eccentricities, but after a few more, and a little thought, I realized that this pattern is probably one of those living-in-the-future deals. Back in the day, when you got a bank account, you always got checks, because that was the only thing you could really do with a bank account. ATM cards were fairly novel when I was a student.
These days, though, everything is electronic. Between electronic bill payment services, electronic payment terminals at every grocery store and fast-food franchise, and online payment services, a student getting a new bank account these days doesn’t really need checks for anything other than the occasional old-school campus organization that isn’t set up to accept credit cards (a couple of students have asked about that).
(Thinking about it a bit, I realized that I don’t even have up-to-date checks– the only paper checks I have that draw on my personal account have an address from two moves ago (we do have a joint household account with up-to-date paper checks, but if I want to use the money in the account that only has my name on it, I end up transferring it to the joint account and writing a check off that. I could order new checks, but what would be the point?)
It’s funny how this stuff creeps up (see also Fred Clark on 2037). Clearly, I need to look into setting the local Sigma Xi chapter up to accept PayPal, or whatever they use for money in World of Warcraft…