When I made the transition from Penn State Main Campus to Elizabethtown College, I had one big observation. Everyone did everything. At Campaign, I distinctly remember seeing the same kid running between groups and being in every showcase. He sang, he danced, he presented. Everything.
As I walked around the Activities Fair, I was trying to decide which club to join. I very quickly realized that was not the way it was done at Etown. You don’t join one club. You join them all and drive yourself crazy for four years.
Etown has a campus culture of “doing.” Those students who attend class and immediately head back to the dorms are in an extreme minority. Nearly everyone is on a sports team, whether official or intramural, in student government, in a music ensemble or in a service club. Many people are in all of them. The question is, does the College attract people who naturally want to get involved, or do people come to the College and suddenly feel the need to get involved?
I don’t have a definite answer to that, but there’s no denying an element of peer pressure on campus. People ask “Where are you interning this semester?” without you mentioning an internship. You’re a Blue Jay. It’s assumed. You go to class, do your homework, join every club you can and land an internship. It’s definitely peer pressure. However, this is a positive type of peer pressure, like the kind which pressures you to get a job or wear pants.
This campus culture of involvement gives us our identity. At this college, we aren’t educated for education’s sake. We’re not educated to sit in smoke-filled rooms and spew information. We’re educated to serve. Educated to “do.”
Our involvement on campus creates and strengthens the relationships we make here. Diverse people come together to produce beautiful things, whether that be a successful Color Run, a much needed down-to-the-wire play or a magnificent symphony. Only by working together can anything worthwhile be done. Because the people with whom you work often become your best friends, we have a special duty to one another. You’re not going to skip the meeting to catch up on your Netflix queue because you’ll be eating dinner alone if you do. This codependency and mixing of roles creates family-like ties.
Some people overdo it. For some, the notion of homework is not even a possibility before midnight because they have gone from meeting to meeting to class to meeting from the time they woke up. Eating is a luxury. Sleep is priceless. One’s level of involvement can drive them crazy.
But, if the amount of activities we’re involved in drive us crazy, then we’re all crazy together. That’s another thing which makes this college like a family. Members of a family rely on each other and drive each other crazy, or at least experience the craziness of life together. You do not create these bonds by smiling to the person sitting next to you in class and then going back to your dorm and locking yourself in.
The skills and relationships we develop during our hectic time at Etown will serve us as we serve others for the rest of our lives.
