A sociology class recently ran into issues when sending out a survey: many students interpreted the phrase "Engagement at Bowdoin" as referring to marriage, when it was in fact a questionnaire about students' depth of commitment to Bowdoin and campus activities. It is unfortunate that so many of us quickly hit the delete button because the data from the survey would have perhaps provided some insight into the current malaise on campus.
I am not talking about the bias incident, but something much less extreme and much more widespread: the lack of meaningful engagement of students with campus activities. As the leader of a few clubs, I have noticed a significant decrease in student interest in events this semester compared to the autumn and especially compared to last year. I am not alone in noticing this blight.
Most of the other campus leaders I know speak of similar issues: expensive lecturers speaking to near-empty conference rooms, themed lunches with food to spare, seminars with gaping holes in the audience. Even my friends who are Bowdoin employees have noticed a strange drop-off in student interest: services like the Career Planning Center have seen record low numbers of students making appointments.
Under-subscribed events and clubs can be divided into two categories: events that no one shows an interest in, and events that garner an amazing response in advance—that then fails to materialize the day of. The former is to be expected on a college campus and can be explained easily by various theories. Perhaps last year's senior class really was a group of movers and shakers and we are just feeling their absence as a lack of creative organizational forces on campus.
As a club leader, I admit I can do a better job of promoting and putting together interesting events. If we all worked harder to create good programming for Bowdoin, then perhaps this part of the issue would be solved.
However, what we seem to be experiencing is not a complete lack of student interest. Rather, there seems to be a void where Bowdoin students' ability to plan and commit to things should be. The pattern this year is that students sign up for events en masse, but the numbers evaporate just before the event in question.
Sometimes students tell the organizers, but more often there is just no news (although it is important to note that a one-line email an hour before the event saying you have a lot of homework essentially falls under the category of no news). This is a problem not only because it makes student clubs less fun for everyone involved, but also it wastes our tuition money.
In most cases, Bowdoin scales the amount of money clubs receive for events depending on the number of participants, but the money is allocated and usually spent far in advance of the actual day. Thus, every time you do not show up for an event, a little bit of your tuition money goes down the drain. In some cases, the cost per student of events can reach nearly $100. That is a lot of money to spend to work on a homework assignment or get another hour of sleep.
There have always been empty seats at events, but this year is characterized both by record responses to the announcement of events as well as record no-show rates. The causes for this are far from clear, but I do have an inkling of a possible reason.
Think back to the autumn of your first year. There you are, chipper and ready to rush to the Activities Fair and sign up for everything in sight. The idea is that people try everything and then decide what they like, making a handful of strong commitments that they support with a lot of time and energy; however, what appears to be happening, especially in the sophomore and first-year classes, is that people sign up for everything and then try to do it all.
Unfortunately, there is simply not enough time in the day to put effort into four classes and a myriad of activities (or perhaps just one or two big ones that eat up time). What results is people signing up for everything in sight and then rushing to finish their homework on time, leaving their other commitments by the roadside. This makes no one happy. Everyone trying to do too much only results in upset students and a lack of communal feeling on campus.
If you agree that Bowdoin students oversubscribing is part of the issue, there is only one thing to do. Instead of doing dozens of activities that we can put no energy toward or one big one that eats our time and forbids us from engaging with diverse things on campus, we should aim to be members of a few organizations that we can truly commit to while having a variety of experiences at Bowdoin.
As I write this, I can see why people (myself included) find it difficult to find a happy medium. The college admissions process—however fervently it is denied—rewards those who do a lot in high school. Now that we are in college, it is hard to remember that most prospective employers really do not care if you did 12 rather than 3 activities, and as such people try to do what they think they should do, rather than what they want to do. College is a time of experimentation, but it is pointless to do so if it does not make you happy.
Perhaps this has always been the case at Bowdoin, but the fact remains that if students' over-commitment has been the status quo, it must be getting worse if people are noticing it. Luckily, the solution is—for one—rather clear-cut, and we do not have to act as a group in order to enact change.
My fellow students, join me in depth rather than breadth: if you are oversubscribed, quit activities that do not give you fulfillment. If you only do a few things and you still cannot fulfill your commitments, re-determine which are worth your time and perhaps reduce your investment in one. There is really no reason why not. Yes, you may disappoint someone, but you will make someone else far happier: yourself. And at the end of the day, if your happiness makes the school a better place, then you really should only look out for number one.