Point: Go to Quad Day

By Brittney Foreman

To spend a scorching day on the Quad with thousands of other students blocking my path just to put my name on lists is an annual opportunity I plan to take advantage of this semester. In fact, I will jump at the chance to join numerous e-mail listservs, not for me, but for the residents whom I will welcome to the University.

What Quad Day means to me: A chance to get program ideas for the students I will be overseeing as a resident advisor. If you are a part of resident advisor world, you know that the word “community” is the pinnacle of what we strive for. Quad Day has something for everyone. Quad Day may give me the resources I need for the type of community I will to build.

I really do care about my residents being able to feel at home here at the University. In fact, to make them feel at home, I will take them to Quad Day. Actually, I think my boss requires it.

Really though, I want to make it a point to be knowledgeable about the Registered Student Organizations on campus, so that if a resident comes to me seeking information, I’ve got a name on the tip of my tongue. If I see that one of my residents is interested in salsa dancing, I might see if an RSO could come give lessons. I won’t contact the president of Salsa Con Fuego just because I too like salsa dancing, but because catering to my students’ needs means I care about my floor. And hopefully caring about my floor will leave me with happy residents who will care about each other. The happier the residents, the more they will get out of the UI experience and give back to it. I would love to be a part of the growth and happiness of any individual. Sounds cheesy but I really do want world peace.

And what if you’re not a resident advisor? Don’t fret. Your purpose in life may not run as deep for Quad Day to benefit you, but I say, go anyway. After all, this campus staple is a chance to enjoy live entertainment and run into old friends. And most likely you’re bound to find some organization that interests you, even if you’ve been going for years.

Quad Day can be an opportunity to try something new. Maybe you wanted to try yoga last year but you couldn’t see past watching your favorite Thursday night show while munching on your favorite snack. Well, if you take your lazy self to Quad Day, you might run into the Body and Brain club and put your name on the member list. And you might lose something. Not sanity, but old habits and maybe that extra flub that started to formulate on the sides of your waistline from participating in those couch potato Thursdays.

I admit though, it is easier to sign up than to commit. Either way, give yourself the chance.

Not too many though. Looking back on previous Quad Day experiences, I think I gave myself chances I wouldn’t have had time to commit to if I seized them all. A word to the wise: don’t give yourself so many chances you’re deleting e-mails just to maintain a quota that will allow to receive them.

If the opposite happens and you can’t find anything you like, you can always swing by Taste of Nevada. You wouldn’t be a college student if you denied yourself the opportunity to grub on free food. And because I plan to live up to who I am, I plan to take full advantage of the opportunities that will take place that first week of school. But I won’t be melting away in the sun’s glorious rays for nothing. I will take my chances so that I may give opportunities. Of course my residents are adult enough to find something on their own. But if they don’t, I’ll be ready. And I’ll also be ready for when I host my weekly Thursday night “Grey’s Anatomy” showing in the Wardall TV lounge. Please, run to the couch and be there. I will. Flub and all.

Counterpoint: Sleep in instead

By Scott Green

On Tuesday, you will feel a great urge to head out to the Quad and sign up for extracurricular activities.

Resist that urge.

Quad Day, the annual sunburn-a-thon where freshmen graze in packs and upperclassmen recite boring explanations of their clubs by rote, is a great way to get the school year off to a disappointing start. It’s not fun, whether you’re looking for an extracurricular to join or a group member recruiting neophytes.

For the prospective members, it’s half sensory overload and half verbal manure. Just because the treasurer of the Underwater Chess Team says his club is a great way to make new friends and get laid doesn’t make it so. The good activities don’t feel they have to try as hard to win you over, which is why the Fireworks Club doesn’t seem any more exciting than Bathe The Elderly.

Everyone’s going to spend 90 minutes or two hours wandering the Quad on the hottest day of the year, and, because they are college students, they will forget or intentionally neglect to apply sunscreen. They’re going to get stuck talking to a representative from Future Actuaries of America because they can’t find a polite way to escape. And then they’re going to overestimate the amount of free time they can devote to extracurriculars this year and sign up for about 19 groups. Their e-mail inboxes will be full of exciting updates about the goings-on of all of them, no matter how many times they tell the guy from Cow Sniffers Alliance they’re just not interested. A friend signed up for the Meta Gamers club at Quad Day 2004, never attended a meeting, and still gets weekly electronic correspondence.

You’ll be happiest if you do what I did my first two years on campus: Sleep late on Quad Day, decide around 2:30 p.m. or 3 p.m. that maybe you’ll head out, then have your roommate come back and tell you it’s over but that you didn’t miss much, then order really cheap pizza that tastes like someone stapled Kraft Singles to a sheet of cardboard.

I spent two years as president of a Registered Student Organization. On Quad Day I had to pressure group members to help man our booth. We persuaded people we knew weren’t going to enjoy our club to sign up and come to our informational meeting. That meeting attracts 40 or 50 newbies every year, and of them, maybe four or five are left at the end of the year.

Quad Day exploits the unrealistic optimism everyone feels as a new school year begins – “This year I’m going to join a bunch of clubs, do my homework, study hard, get a part-time job, and not spend so much time writing things on my unconscious friends with permanent ink.” Remember at the beginning of the summer, all those plans you had for your three months of free time? Remember how you got around to doing none of those things? Quad Day works the same way.

There’s an easy fix to the Quad Day problem. The University should invite each RSO to submit 400 or 500 words and a picture, and assemble the collection into a booklet sponsored by campus businesses. For added fun, ads could be mixed and matched with clubs so that, for example, the McDonald’s ad could run on the same page as the Cross Country team.

If the school is stuck on the idea of bringing everybody to the Quad, the booklet can be handed out on the steps of the Union. Of course, this measure will never be taken because it is too sensible and requires too little red tape. It also wouldn’t get the University on the local TV news, which is very important because it makes sure the residents of Champaign and Urbana are still aware that there is a giant state university in town.

Quad Day wastes a beautiful summer afternoon and the last 24 hours before classes start, a time when it is most important that free use of the Quadrangle not be taken from Frisbeers, picnickers and freelance preachers. There are better things to do Tuesday than hit up Quad Day. Just don’t go.