Two of the main complaints against this year’s incarnation of freshman housing are that it has created two years of de facto segregated housing and that as a result of their isolation freshmen and sophomores aren’t recieving valuable information from upperclassmen.
Yesterday’s “Major Madness” program went a long way to remedy some of these problems. The program’s Danforth location was ideal since it is at the heart of sophomore living and provided valuable information on majors and clusters that underclassmen can no longer access through student sources. Since upperclassmen have experienced the upperlevel classes that provide the meat of most majors, they can provide insight and information about classes and majors that freshmen and sophomores can’t know.
One of the important tenets in the creation of freshman housing was to provide large amounts of programming to help freshmen assimilate into the campus community. Overall, educational programming has been severely lacking this year, but if limited programming is to occur, this is just the right topic on which to focus.
Many of UR’s majors leave little room for error, and students cannot afford to wait until their junior year to begin getting serious about their education. Major Madness allowed this year’s freshmen and sophomore classes the same advantages as earlier classes have had, and gave them the power to make informed decisions that will have a large impact on their future. This program did exactly what underclass programming should do and there should be more functions like it.
