Story By: Terran Sherwood
Contributing Writer
What would college be without student groups? Greek fraternities and sororities, theatre and even gaming clubs make up the modern day college experience.
However, not all of these clubs live in harmony with one another. When given a closer examination, a lot of these clubs suffer from an ego trip and a superiority complex.
For example, last spring, the Original Upholders of the Gaming Arts (or OUGA for short) had been meeting up on the Student Union second floor for its weekly meetings. They had reserved that area through official channels and were approved to use it from 1-3 p.m.
However, one spring afternoon, another college group (who shall remained unnamed) decided to set up for their meeting, scheduled for 3 p.m., during OUGA’s time period. OUGA didn’t have a problem with this, until this other group started making a few demands.
Asking to set up during another group’s reserved time is one thing. Telling that group to keep it down and trying to kick them out an hour before their meeting is over is another.
This unnamed group had so little respect for another campus-sponsored group that OUGA just got up and left rather than deal with them.
So this raises the question, why the hostility among groups?
The best answer I can offer is that most groups by nature feel they are above the others. What Greek club is going to tell their pledges “We’re really only the fifth best club on campus”?
Every group is going to think that they are superior in some way. This also becomes a problem when the students feel like they have to pledge their loyalty to one particular group.
Why aren’t there more football players in the theater department? Why aren’t there more math majors working on the newspaper?
These divisions among the groups keep us from realizing what the full college experience really is. We start putting ourselves into these little boxes of groups, and we stay there under that one category. Why not branch out and do something different?
In the end, college is about experiences, experiencing new things so you know what you want to spend the rest of your life doing.
Oh, and to a certain leadership group, you owe my friends and I an hour of your meeting time to play Mario Kart. It seems only fair.