Redundant organizations cause redundancy

It seems there are a few things students hear over and over when they are just starting college. Everyone is eager to give advice to the incoming freshmen, largely based on the aspects of his or her own college experience which seem, in retrospect, somehow inadequate. Indeed, the Technique tends to be guilty of this as well, often spreading the same old "college is what you make of it" message.

Which is, of course, absolutely true: college is exactly what you make of it, no more and no less. In fact, the statement applies to nearly all facets of life.

The problem, however, lies not with the statement itself but with some of the additional suggestions it is used to justify. The biggest offender? "Get involved!" Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you. The problem, rather, is with the fact that many of Tech's student organizations are somewhat flawed.

Beginning with freshmen orientation, students are pushed in a thousand different directions, overwhelmed by a variety of clubs, volunteer opportunities and other ways to occupy their time. Many of these freshmen come from smaller high schools where the number of clubs they could join did not exceed 10.

Compare that with Tech, where Cyberbuzz claims 370 organizations in its database. That's one club, fraternity, service organization or sports group for every six and a half freshmen, assuming 2,400 incoming students in an average year. And that doesn't include the many other opportunities open to students-valuable activities like undergraduate research or the co-op program.

With such a multitude of options, is it really surprising that many students are overwhelmed and end up not pursuing any extracurricular activities? The constant cries of "get involved" do nothing but exacerbate the already-high stress levels facing freshmen.

Interestingly (but not surprisingly), the biggest impact of students sticking to their rooms their freshman year is on organizations themselves. I believe-and I don't intend to single out the groups I will proceed to use for examples, so I apologize to those clubs in advance-that quite a few clubs at Tech could stand to re-evaluate their raisons d'être.

Take, for example, the many Christian organizations on campus. In a cursory perusal of Cyberbuzz's "religious" category, I counted 22-and no, that isn't a typo.

Now, certainly, a number of different denominations make up the greater whole of Christianity. But many of these organizations proclaim themselves as non-denominational, making the need even more tenuous.

Another example is among the Indian-focused organizations on campus. What functions do Aarohi (a club "to promote Indian classical music & dance by organizing events on the GT campus," according to their Cyberbuzz description), Asha for Education ("A secular organization dedicated to change in India by focusing on basic education and supporting it"), and the Association for India's Development serve that could not just as well be handled by the India Club?

Clubs with similar purposes and with the same target audience as each other hurt not only themselves but other groups and, most importantly, students. The students who are currently split up into a multitude of minor groups could be meeting more people with common interests, organizing bigger undertakings and generally having a better experience by being involved in larger organizations.

Now I'm sure my detractors will argue that a student who is interested in both India and Indian music can simply join both India Club and Aarohi. This is, of course, completely possible in theory. But what about in practice? Joining two clubs may not necessarily mean double the time commitment, but there is certainly an increase in the time that needs to be invested. Joining multiple clubs also means having to juggle additional meeting times around a student's already-busy schedule. And besides, why should someone join two or three clubs that are so similar when they have 367 other organizations in which to pursue one of their other interests?

The solution to the problem seems obvious: consolidation.

Certainly, a consolidation of campus organizations would have drawbacks. Any major change does. But I don't think the costs outweigh the gains in this particular case. The leadership opportunities lost in a merger could be made up for through greater executive structure in the existing club.

Would writing "Chair of India Club's Committee for Promotion of Indian Music" on your resume really be that much worse than "President of Aarohi Club?" Quality leadership would also preserve the close-knit feeling many clubs generate among the members, as sub-groups would still be able to organize under the auspices of the larger organization.

But let's get back to the freshmen and the pressure they feel to get involved in something. Would a reduction in the number of organizations really encourage more of them to get involved? I certainly think so-as long as what is lost in consolidation is redundancy, not variety, in any case.