At a university that enrolls about 40,000 students, supporting a cohesive campuswide community is daunting. When presented with the reality that students will only have genuine social interactions with a small percentage of their peers, the University is pigeonholed into emphasizing vague concepts of camaraderie, like pride in our A-for-effort varsity sports program, playing “Hail to the Orange” on the Altgeld chimes, or the late, great Chief Illiniwek.

Fortunately for our well-intentioned administrators, students seem to be fully capable of forming their own groups. We surround ourselves with people who have the same interests, beliefs, drinking holes, economic status and race.

In the first few weeks of the fall semester freshmen will find themselves in the groups they will likely belong to for their college careers, which in turn will contribute to their future social and professional progression. Meanwhile, existing groups will vie for new participants through formalized rituals like Quad Day and Rush Week, or informal interactions like parties and seating choices in classrooms.

This cliquish behavior is natural and necessary in large communities, and while I’m not suggesting it should stop, everyone should be aware that this behavior can just as easily contribute to strife as it does to community.

A choice most students face is whether or not to go Greek. Those who do join are pinned into groups that are based on factors like economic status, physical appearance, religion and race. Added to this is a quiet animosity from non-Greeks who erroneously believe they are above such petty segregation.

Although this situation is almost unavoidable, it should be possible for us to limit the harmful component of this situation, which is the feeling that it is us-versus-them. You may not think that loading up a rented school bus and getting trashed is the best way to spend a weekend, but hating someone for it is silly. Likewise, harassing late-night Ultimate Frisbee players on the Quad is only going to further the widespread stereotyping of Greeks as brutish and unkind.

Additionally, students will begin to join any number of active organizations on campus. The effect most of these groups have on the community is causing a certain degree of seclusion for people who have exactly the same interests, hardly something to be worried about.

While most of these groups are not on one side of an issue (unless there is an extensive anti-swing dancing group that I’m unaware of), some groups formed around contentious issues like the legality of abortions, the state of Israel, or the status of the Chief, can cause painful divisions on campus. What members of these groups should remember is that they will hardly change or maintain the status quo by promoting hate against their opposition. On the other hand, through respectful debate and demonstrations they can exhibit a more welcoming environment for new students. I would loathe to join a group that told me that my Palestinian friend is a terrorist because he wants civil rights for his family.

Even something as benign as the selection of your major has the potential to create feelings of separation from other students. It will become fairly obvious that the departments of Computer Science and Speech Communication pull from fairly disparate demographics. Because we meet many of our friends in our classes, this extends into our social lives, and is reinforced every semester. So, take advantage of general education requirements as an opportunity to meet people outside of your discipline.

The divisions created by our natural inclination to pursue our interests and sustain our friendships are harmful only insofar that they cause us to forget that we are all just college students.

Even when you encounter someone in a class or at an event who lives a life seemingly opposed to your own, they share the common thread of attending the University of Illinois, and thus deserve your respect and compassion.