“Be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes.” -Abraham Lincoln (Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure)
One thing that has always amazed me since I came to college was the amount of diversity that is contained in these few square miles. When you are growing up, you tend to not be surrounded by people completely different than you, everyone around you is fairly similar. College, though, holds so many different types of people from all over the world– which is to be expected because this is an institute of higher education and, with the various study abroad programs, it makes sense to think we would facilitate people from different countries. But, when you look beyond that, what you find is that we are essentially the same– we just have different interests and hobbies, that’s where the true diversity lies. The Residential College, I believe, is the best way to fully get a sense of the amount of diversity that college has to offer.
In a residential college, every resident is there for a common purpose; for the STARS, it’s to “live the arts,” for STEM, it’s bring together like-minds to collaborate in math, science, and engineering, and, in Hughes, you strive to become a leader on campus and in your community. But, within Residential Colleges, what you find is that there are many different kinds of people there.
Within my RC, the STARS, we all have some ability in the arts that makes it perfect for us to live here. Some residents here are in choir, band, or theater, some like to draw and paint and then there are some here who have no real connection to the arts but their personality is perfect for the atmosphere that we have created here.
An example of such a person would be my friend Chris; Chris isn’t involved in choir or band, instead what he good at is video games. He loves to play and discuss all kinds of video games with his friends; he also has an interest in technology. He loves to find the latest news on computer hardware, cameras, and other technologic devices. Chris is a film major but what he hopes to do one day is start a production company to make his video games, videos and other sketch videos proffesionaly. He may not directly affect our artsy community we have here but he does indirectly with his personality and presence.
My suitemate Jared on the other hand does influence the arts but not through band or theater, through his photography. Jared is one of the most talented photographers that I know and he is truly passionate about what he does. His art isn’t actively displayed for all those to see, unlike the choir or band members. The unique thing is: even though Jared is passionate about what he does, he isn’t a photography major (he’s actually undeclared, so that might change) to him this is just a hobby that he loves and occasionally makes a bit of money off of.
My roommate, Cheston, is similar to me. We were both in choir in high school but not here in college, so he doesn’t actively contribute to the traditional arts community we have here. His interest, though, is in movies; Cheston is a film major with an extensive knowledge of the ins and outs of the movie industry and could tell you almost anything you wanted to know about movies. For Cheston, movies are a hobby that he one day hopes to turn into a career. He one day hopes to be like our resident artists who use paint and music to create art, but his art will be through a different medium, a camera.
Chris, Jared, and Cheston, while not being directly a part of our arts community, still offer a lot to the environment because they don’t fall within the traditional definition of the STARS (choir, band, and theater.) Even within a specified type of Residential College there are those that who have different interest and hobbies but still fit in there.
Diversity isn’t a bad thing; in fact it’s a very good thing. Diversity has the ability to allow us to learn to new things and discover new ways of thinking. It promotes collaboration and the finding of a middle ground to let us connect to each other on a whole new level. The view I gave is just of one small population of entire college, there are many more people out there that are vastly different then us of the STARS RC you just have to be able to open yourself up to them and let the true collegiate experience begin.
http://jaredholtphoto.com/
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