A high school student applying for advanced entry to the very competitive Honours Business Administration (HBA) program at the University of Western Ontario’s Ivey School of Business didn’t seem to understand that Twitter is a public forum when she announced last month that, “this ivey application makes me want to projectile vomit into the head of admission’s mouth.” Ivey HBA recruiting manager Sunali Swaminathan was looking for Tweets from students with application questions when she saw the missive from DJ PU$$ PU$$, as the applicant is known on Twitter, and responded that the comment was “Duly noted.”

Swaminathan told Western News that “this student is by no means the only student to have said something inappropriate on social media,” and added, “[they] need to consider whether what they say is consistent with the reputation they want to build.”

The value of one’s reputation should be obvious but many students fail to understand that everything they post online has the potential to damage their careers, just as it damaged DJ PU$$ PU$$’ chance of getting into Ivey. Students often learn the hard way that swear words, racist jokes and sexist comments are simply unacceptable at universities and in workplaces. Saint Mary’s University football players seemed caught off guard in January after being suspended for offensive Tweets

Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long to find more of these faux pas. In fact, on four out of five of the Twitter accounts whose owners recently referenced applying to Ivey’s HBA, there are rude or offensive comments. Only one of the five deserves an A for appropriate use of Twitter. Students who want to protect their reputations should study the Tweets of Adam Khimji.