2008 Woodie Awards
Road trip! A solution for all our problems
Feature Editorial
Josh Moyer
Issue date: 7/14/08 Section: Opinions
One of the more frustrating things about being a student at the University of Illinois at Chicago is the lack of community at our school. We all have friends on campus and at home that we can enjoy life with, but if we are honest with ourselves we will acknowledge that it is difficult to meet people at this university because a wide majority of students treat it as if it were a giant community college. It isn't, of course; it's one of the best public universities in the country, and it is a worthy institution of learning and research, even if it is highly unpleasing aesthetically. All the same, it is a commuter school and always will be, but I hope that someday it will provide a more conventional college experience for its students who are hungry for traditional relationship-building and social networking, as no university should rely on Sparky the Dragon or "Friday Night Live" to give its students a good time. For that matter, no university should rely on a "buffet" instead of a cafeteria to provide its students a good meal. The "Oasis" lounges are good first starts but they are lacking as fundamental reforms of the manner in which students can interact with other students on our campus.
Until UIC has made more changes for the good of its students, I have taken Mahatma Ghandi to heart and have become "the change I wish to see in the world." I have made my own college experience this summer. I decided to take a roadtrip! Is there anything more American, or collegiate for that matter? As a young American, my life is infused with wanderlust and anxiety, with an urge to find my future and hit the road as soon as possible. By sheer virtue of being college students, we all have these same instincts. We are all studying at the university to make a better life for ourselves, and to find a community where we belong. I believe that UIC makes it difficult to find such communities, not out of malice or any deliberation but rather unintentionally. Whoever it was that decided to make our campus out of cold grey concrete also did not have the foresight to make a university where it is easy to forge human bonds. This needs to change just as sure as Grant Hall was changed, and I think that the university understands this but its incremental reforms ought to be more comprehensive and daring.
Still, I find myself feeling jealous as we walk past the University of Washington in Seattle, or Oregon in Eugene, or Oregon State in Corvallis. Not just because their campuses are beautiful, but because there are people everywhere, enjoying more traditional college experiences than we do at UIC. I would not trade the University of Illinois at Chicago for these institutions, as I find our university largely satisfying in regard to my field of study and the professors I work with, but as I have said: we need to make it easier for human beings to behave like human beings and not feel as if they are walking through a prison when they are on campus. That is why I left the city for a two-week roadtrip. And besides that, I firmly believe that nobody has really lived until they've driven through northern California and the Pacific Northwest, and that college students ought to hit the road more often for their own personal growth.
Especially when their campus looks like a prison.
Until UIC has made more changes for the good of its students, I have taken Mahatma Ghandi to heart and have become "the change I wish to see in the world." I have made my own college experience this summer. I decided to take a roadtrip! Is there anything more American, or collegiate for that matter? As a young American, my life is infused with wanderlust and anxiety, with an urge to find my future and hit the road as soon as possible. By sheer virtue of being college students, we all have these same instincts. We are all studying at the university to make a better life for ourselves, and to find a community where we belong. I believe that UIC makes it difficult to find such communities, not out of malice or any deliberation but rather unintentionally. Whoever it was that decided to make our campus out of cold grey concrete also did not have the foresight to make a university where it is easy to forge human bonds. This needs to change just as sure as Grant Hall was changed, and I think that the university understands this but its incremental reforms ought to be more comprehensive and daring.
Still, I find myself feeling jealous as we walk past the University of Washington in Seattle, or Oregon in Eugene, or Oregon State in Corvallis. Not just because their campuses are beautiful, but because there are people everywhere, enjoying more traditional college experiences than we do at UIC. I would not trade the University of Illinois at Chicago for these institutions, as I find our university largely satisfying in regard to my field of study and the professors I work with, but as I have said: we need to make it easier for human beings to behave like human beings and not feel as if they are walking through a prison when they are on campus. That is why I left the city for a two-week roadtrip. And besides that, I firmly believe that nobody has really lived until they've driven through northern California and the Pacific Northwest, and that college students ought to hit the road more often for their own personal growth.
Especially when their campus looks like a prison.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 4
Ken
posted 7/19/08 @ 6:37 PM CST
I digress, UIC has improved a lot over the past few years. With the south campus addition it is much more easier to meet new people and to 'hang out'. (Continued…)
mark
posted 7/20/08 @ 11:17 PM CST
We, as students, need to start questioning the priortization of funding on this campus. Why does Urbana find the funds to erect things a simple as wooden benches and kiosks to as expensive as performing arts centers or fountains, etc but Chicago cannot? Is it because this campus is underfunded compared to other state schools? Is it how the administration spends its money? Is it because our alumni don't donate at as high a rate?
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