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Student apathy: doers and do-nothings

The way I see Stevens, there are two types of people: the doers, and the do-nothings.

Of course, there is a lot more to it than that, but let’s pretend that every student at Stevens can be placed into one of these two categories.

The “doers” at Stevens are the people who go out and do a lot. They are your Student Government Association, your fraternity members, your Honor Board, members of the Indian Undergraduate Association, and even The Stute.

These people care about events on campus, and put a strong invested interest in making the Stevens experience a quality one. They often put in hours of their own time to give you clubs like RedShift, or host events like TechFest, or help out during Move-In day, or host an anime convention, or print out a newspaper every week.

It is also important to note that a “doer” is likely to be involved in not one, but multiple things. So your standard SGA senator is likely also a brother/sister of a fraternity/sorority, and also might have some ties with an ethnic organization. The point is that “doers” do a lot.

And then there are the “do-nothings.” These are the people that seldom come to any events, who stay in their own little worlds, not bothering to contribute, because they realize the futility of working in these clubs.

Any policy in the SGA will one day get overturned. Events in most clubs are only good for food, most of which you can get elsewhere, better, and not too expensive. Who cares if you can watch the Avengers on Palmer lawn? You can pirate it easily. The Stute won’t publish its newspapers forever.

These are mostly true points that the “do-nothings” think. Even if there is the allure of developing skills or honing talents with things such as tennis or journalism or art, odds are they won’t be interested: it’s not worth their time.

Maybe, once in awhile, a “do-nothing” will attend a LAN to play games, or eat some Bulgogi at a Korean Student Association event, but they likely won’t stay for long, and odds are they’ll keep to themselves.

The sad reality is, is that there are a good handful of both of these groups at Stevens and I’d probably say that there are more “do-nothings” than “doers”.

The problem is this: the clubs are primed and ready for only the “doers”. The SGA only wants “doers” on the senate, the club events cater to what “doers” want to do, TechFest usually is not planned with the “do-nothings” in mind, and worst of all, The Stute does not know how to reach this other half of the school.

I once argued with fellow members that “most of the school aren’t Greek,” or something akin to that, and it was pointed out that, “of the people that read The Stute, most are.” I am forced to acknowledge this reality, that this newspaper doesn’t have anything of interest in it for a large portion of the apathetic “do-nothing” student body.

Worse yet, I don’t really know how to change it. Things in this organization are changing, our outreach is expanding, we have The Stute Readers Loyalty Program to hopefully convince more people to pick up a newspaper and read it.

As such, we here at The Stute have a tendency to cover events on campus, usually bigger or more noteworthy ones, in lieu of something that the other half of the population at Stevens would be interested in.

I may not be in Gear and Triangle, or Alpha Phi Omega, or the Student Government Association, or any other “school spirit” group, but I admire the prospect of a unified campus where everyone wants to take part in something. Alas, student apathy runs strong, and those “doers” who are planning spirit events in the coming months probably aren’t considering the “do-nothings” that comprise a large chunk of the student body.

Until we can reach them, and they are your classmates, friends, and colleagues, there can’t be a real “school spirit.”

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