Constructive CriticismCo by Anonymous

In a sea of UCU committee events, I am an undercover committee event hater. This is controversial, coming from someone who nearly sweated through all their clothes going to their own committee interview, but I stand by it. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the occasional post from UCU Confessions and the random UCU horses account that just popped up, but I sometimes find the rest to be a little performative. By the rest, I mean committees that are going through World War 3 with UCSA just to get 20 euros for a movie night – we all have beds/couches, laptops/TVs, and can buy popcorn to watch movies on our own.

It’s getting to a point in my mind where I find the endless ocean of PR posts borderline cringy. It’s sort of like watching one of those Netflix movies with no real plot; the director made something only to buff up their directorial resumé.

The concept of hosting an event just for the sake of hosting one is where I draw the line. I think some committees do a really good job of hosting things that people actually see the benefit in and ___want___ to attend. But for the most part, we’re all students who pretend to be more knowledgeable and qualified than the rest, i.e. qualified enough to host an event that we know jackshit about. The constant craze to make your committee stand out and get people to attend your events infuriates me. Collaborations between 4 committees that do the exact same thing: redundant and frankly quite boring. The spark is what’s missing; nobody really cares about what they’re doing; there’s no passion involved (generalizing, of course). 

It’s getting to a point in my mind where I find the endless ocean of PR posts borderline cringy. It’s sort of like watching one of those Netflix movies with no real plot; the director made something only to buff up their directorial resumé. To put it in terms we all understand: joining a committee just to put it on your CV or on the unfinished LinkedIn that you downloaded in your senior year of high school and forgot about. 

UCU is a place filled to the brim with intelligent people who understand the basic concepts of critical thinking and common sense. Why then are we allowing this repetitive ___bullshit___ to keep occurring? Be original, do something new, please! I’m not excluding myself from this equation; I do dabble with the occasional Ducks n’ Soup event and am not dissing every event on the face of the Earth. But understand that there’s a reason that it takes you 6 working days to scroll up to the top of the events groupchat, and it’s not because there are ___that___ many truly interesting things going on.

My point – which hasn’t been articulated very well, I’m sure, but I hope you somewhat understood – is that it’s truly never that deep. We are all students, all fresh adults, and your life doesn’t depend on how many mid committee events you can advertise on Instagram. It’s like that quintessential little boy who starts crying when his purple-bibbed football team loses the warm-up game in PE class: it’s not that deep! There’s no value in hosting identical events with no real purpose; it’s honestly a waste of time, resources, and money. This is easier said than done on a campus with 40 different committees that all want to “make a name for themselves,” but consider the fact that sometimes inaction is better than action just for the sake of action.

Like my (and your?) parents always said, think before you speak… and think before you PR the third LinkedIn workshop of the week on the UCSA story, so we don't waste thumb energy that could otherwise be used scrolling reels. Join a committee because it’s fun, not because you want to compete with your friend to see which of your half-assed events gets the most hype. Let go of the campus clout kink for having the funniest boomerangs on your committee’s Instagram story, and touch some grass.

To conclude, go into Spring with whimsy and passion, not the same events that have been plaguing the school for 60 years, but now have better (AI-generated) PR posters. Green Team, please don’t @ me for not being green enough, but in terms of committee events, sometimes reducing, reusing, and recycling is not the move! 

Join a committee because it’s fun, not because you want to compete with your friend to see which of your half-assed events gets the most hype.

On a final, more positive note, and in the spirit of Spring, flowers, and kindness, committees are part of campus culture, and they do serve a purpose, just not that of blowing up my phone and using up my storage. Save me looking at my notifications for when my situationship texts me back after 2 days, please!