Cpw - a parent's nightmare! Please help

collegealum314
Sat, 13 Apr 2013 16:06:53 +0000

I think adulthood is about more freedom, and taking responsibility for the outcomes of the choices you make with this new freedom. If we’re arguing different definitions here, I’d love to hear yours.



Well, there are several lines-of-argument I could make. I will pose one of them.

For one, I think freedom of choice is more important for the incoming freshman than it is to allow upperclassmen free reign to design the experiences of the freshmen. Maybe the freshmen males would like to live in a place which has a party every week, to be around people who value being social more, and which fulfills the social component of their resume’ if they’re premed, BUT where they don’t get hazed or have to sink a huge amount of time doing stupid crap to prove they’r worthy of the house.

Maybe they would like to spend their spare time doing a varsity sport or in a UROP rather than doing stupid pledge activities. Right now, only ZBT is a fraternity without a pledge program. There are a limited amount of ILGs, which is good, but it isn’t quite the same experience.

Why does the hazing have to be packaged with stuff the freshmen like, like Microsoft packaging a lousy browser with its word processing program? Why does being in a social place like a fraternity have to be packaged with only knowing the people in your house? Before FOC, they dominated your time so much that it was hard to meet anyone else, especially if you had any serious extracurricular activities. If they can’t eliminate the hazing, they should alter the choices so that hazing is less likely to occur. And this is why I think FOC is an improvement. At least freshmen, even the ones in fraternities, have the opportunity of having a broad group of friends so they aren’t so isolated.

The freshmen are going to have limited choices either way; it’s up to MIT to determine which ones they are. Instead of giving the upperclassmen the freedom and autonomy to limit the choices of freshmen in one way, I think MIT should take an active role in ensuring that the freshmen have better choices. I think FOC is a small step in that direction.