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Rachel Holmgren
Costello
English 121 C
Unit 2 Assignment: Rough Draft
9-14-03
The Pre Cram Jam
From afar the pre Cram Jam looked rather empty. With volleyball nets set up yet no one around but a lonely ball. A horseshow game set up to the side that no one has touched. A DJ played music off to himself. Although the Pre Cram Jam looked rather dull, many students attended the party. They were just all crowded together in a tight line that hot, sticky day, waiting impatiently for their free food.
The pre cram jam has begun, and is very similar to the other “back to school” parties South Eastern Illinois College has held for five years, although this year, unlike others in the past, in order to receive free food, each student has to first sign up for a club. Then they could get a food ticket and get their food. A freshman at Southeaster Illinois College, 18 year old Brice Evans flatly stated “I wouldn’t have signed up for the club without the free food involved”.
Getting the students to participate more sounds like a pretty good idea, but will the club for food trade make students more active? Forcing the hungry students into extra curricular activities could perhaps bring a little culture to the students of Southeastern, learning never hurts anyone. At first glance it seems like an okay idea, just getting students active and getting them to socialize in a healthy environment that is still academic. But just as these students are not participating in all the lonely pathetic looking beach games cluttering this party, many of the students will just sign up for the food and never attend these club meetings. It seems that could cause more problems with attendance, keeping records of who is actually in the clubs etc. Clubs should want members who are actually interested in the club, rather than someone who was just hungry and wanted their food ticket. People should sign up for these clubs because they want to, not as an excuse for food.
It doesn’t even really matter which clubs these students signed up for. It seems that they just head to the nearest booth, scribble their name and grab their precious food ticket. When asked what club he signed up for, Brice Evans shaded his eyes at the hot sun, thinking a minute, before he shrugged “I think it was theater club, but I am not sure”. So will this student ever even attend the meetings of the theater club that he maybe signed up for? “Maybe I will go”, Evans said before really thinking about it, he then paused and added “well, no actually I probably will not go.” He then asked “we don’t have to attend these clubs, do we?” Another student of Southeastern, a sophomore that attended the Pre Cram Jam, CJ Warne was lucky, exclaiming he “got out of signing up for a club he wouldn’t even attend, because a friend gave him a food ticket.” Warne went on to explain his thoughts on the matter, saying "it was a cool way for the school to show some of the clubs, but it was dumb for people to have to sign up for the clubs.”
Evans already had established that he came to the Pre Cram Jam because he “didn’t want to go all the way back into town and waste money on food and gas.” there seemed to be some students that came for more reasons than food, that were actually checking out the clubs, talking to the clubs, some people that really were interested in signing up for the clubs. It turns out the students that seemed to be really socializing with others and talking and asking questions to the clubs, as though they were honestly interested turned out to be other students for English class, also writing about the Pre Cram Jam, trying to get their interviews and quotes.
Every student interviewed came out for the free food. Some went a little further, Krista Farmer saying she came for the free food, but also hoped to meet new people. And CJ Warne going a little deeper, saying he’d “heard the hot dogs were great” and he came to check that out. Evans also added as he picked some pink cardboard flamingo glasses that they were “giving away free stuff, which is always good.”
Although, the party did seem successful. People seemed to be having a good time, eating and socializing. And as Tim Daugherty told me, “these back to school parties have been going on for about five years.” Which is not surprising, most Americans would never pass on free food. And even though no one played volleyball, horseshoes, or whatever “beach party” games that they had set up in September, it did bring everyone together for a little while. Although, there are a few things they could have done to make the Pre Cram Jam better, CJ Warne explains this stating “they should not have had the whole ticket thing, we're in college now, and we can make decisions on our own”. Brice Evans also had his own ideas for what they should do next year to make the party better, suggesting they “give us the day off for it, and give extra credit to those who attend and have a live band, giving more emphasis on the jam part.” Although SIC doesn’t feel that different from most high schools at times, it is a college, and students are expected to be grown up, and treated as adults. But I guess we students still aren’t supposed to be able to make up our own minds, and have to be forced into school activities. But in the end, everyone seemed to have a good time, but it seems the pre cram jam largely failed because the students, unmotivated by education, came mainly for the free food. Considering this establishment is the one babying the students, they are the ones who are keeping students to mature, these students are all legally adults, treating the students this way holds then back from making their own self-motivated decisions, instead of feeling forced into it.
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