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[Boogus Epirus Aurelius]

Thought I’d spend the afternoon in the woods, catching up with some friends in town, but I ended up in some sweaty student coffee shop in front of a bunch of eyes just to keep up appearances.

“Do you have any suggestions for the upcoming months Boognish?”

“Nah, I’m just here for the free coffee and day old everything bagels, thanks”

As I’m supposedly nearing the end of my college career for the umpteenth time, I thought I’d finally stack my resume a little more with some official club statistics, which means joining the inevitable “community-focused” major-related weekly meetings.

This is after a few semesters worth of dropping hints and questions as to why I’m not showing up. I like enough of the people, a lot actually. But, there’s the idea of obligation, I guess, and the fact that these things end up so goddamn aimless. There’s the secretary and the treasurer and the club president and this stone tablet mandate and list of following dates of scheduled and compartmentalized efforts to promote unity, community activity and fun. I’d rather just get everyone together at someone’s house and have a few beers and order some chinese and shoot the shit about the things we’re learning about and just listen to Jackson C frank. Get stoned and sit on the roof in twenty nine degree weather with a few flurries in headlight beams.

Ayn Rand’s a shithead fuck, but if objectivism got anything right, it’s the idea that the majority of people participate in charity for personal benefit. Giving is a win-win thing, right? Donate ten bucks in this week’s burger money to the local after-school program. Feel good, after school program gets a new pack of bargain construction paper. Win-win.

But this community obligation is something that dominates so many of these student organizations. How come? Guess I’m a dork, but I think it’d be great to have this section of outside time obligated to bringing in speakers who can deliver new and interesting information on the major that I’ve chosen, maybe some local experts who actually thrived a bit on a humanities degree, maybe a bullshit session amongst students?

Maybe that’s the priority initially, but it gets lost in this “must contribute back” mentality. Back to what? Well, if we’re going to be valid and competitive, we have to organize a canned soup drive for flu sufferers.

Life’s not like the movies.

[silvertone]

ayn rand is cool as hell

[silvertone]

are food drives the only thing churches are good for anymore?

[applesauce]

I agree with a lot of this-- student organizations are mostly bullshit-- like you, they are people looking for causes that don't really exist and they don't really have a passion for, for the purpose of resume padding or some sense of requirement.

But I don't agree that that extends into real-world community organizations-- sure I think that most people who donate money or whatever do it out of a sense of duty or something similar, but I think that most people who run or volunteer a lot of time at real-world organizations do it because they have some level of passion for it, and they enjoy it.


FWIW, I've never been in a student organization before. A group of us tried to start one for transit fanning, but got about 2 weeks into the application process before we realized we don't need school money/blessing and it was just easier to get together in common interest without going through a multi-month application thing and having official positions and paperwork and shit.

[??????]

ayn rand is cool as hell

also i just join community groups to mess around with everything sexually and emotionally and play devil's advocate all the time
i do it because i'm really bored

[strongbad]

maybe some local experts who actually thrived a bit on a humanities degree, maybe a bullshit session amongst students?

Because there's never been one hahahahahahahaha

Just kidding I can make these jokes because I'm studying Psychology.
Student clubs are definitely bullshit, though. With the exception being Super Smash Bros. Clubs because it is hard to find like-minded Smashers without some searching.

[Boogus Epirus Aurelius]

FWIW, I've never been in a student organization before. A group of us tried to start one for transit fanning, but got about 2 weeks into the application process before we realized we don't need school money/blessing and it was just easier to get together in common interest without going through a multi-month application thing and having official positions and paperwork and shit.

This is a really good point actually. Even a lot of the smaller majors have static organizations and in order to end up in the big weekly mailing list, they have to jump through the same hoops as everyone else. And they probably negotiate a semester budget too. And the only way for the school to foot the bill is if they feel it's worthwhile and nothing's more worthwhile than a bake sale.

Maybe that's more of a state university mentality though? An ex girlfriend of mine was a Chem major at a private school and an active member of her program's environmental organization and they'd routinely petition for grants for bus fare to out of town conferences and things like that.

Or, maybe, it's just here.

I was trying to get people on board to get a paper published about a project a dozen of us worked on last semester, but it's like pulling teeth. I don't even know any other avenues I could go with it, and I sure as hell don't feel comfortable putting the thing together by myself...