I recently attended a student-run program here at Tufts. I expected to be edified about a topic, but I left incredibly disappointed. The entire thing was sloppy, disorganized and amateurish.
Do not bother guessing what the event was because it is irrelevant. Unfortunately, there are tons of events on campus that are run in equally disorderly fashion.
So I ask myself: What gives? I go to an exceptional school, and the people here are genuinely intelligent and motivated. How could it be that students could so epically drop the ball? Why was the time and effort not put in to make this event (and the many others like it) a success?
I think the answer is so obvious that no one notices it. Those who were running the program simply had too much to do. They had too much on their plates. How could you be expected not only to run a program, but also run it well, when you have so many other extracurricular responsibilities to worry about? There are only so many hours in the day, right?
I know that I am just a lowly freshman and that it might seem really presumptuous of me to be writing a piece like this. I know that I will come to learn that there are so many great student groups here, and everyone wants to be a part of everything. I understand that it is difficult to resist your urge to do all those great things.
Nevertheless, I think that an outsider perspective is allowing me to give a more objective analysis than those mired in the conflict. Here is my advice to the Tufts community: Do less stuff. Be in fewer clubs.
It needs to be understood that you are doing no one any favors by biting off more than you can chew. By trying to do more, you are doing less. Instead of committing to so many things and then doing them all half-assed, why not pick one or two things and then do them amazingly? Why not become the expert on one topic? Wouldn't our community be served better if we all were individually awesome at something instead of being individually pretty good at a million things?
Every time I hear someone rattle off a laundry list of their extracurricular activities, all I can think is, "Wow, you dedicate a half-hour of your week to a lot of different things." What if there was one thing that you put as much time into as all of those combined? You would obviously be way better at it. You would be the king or queen of that thing.
There are nearly 5,000 undergraduates at Tufts. We could literally take over the world if everyone here chose one thing on which to become the authority. Think about it this way if you're still unconvinced: I understand that you may really be passionate about eight different causes, but you are not helping those causes by trying to campaign on behalf of all of them. In fact, you are hurting your many causes because you are not doing them justice. You could impact the world more if you focused all your energy on the genocide in Darfur instead of spending a little time on cancer research, putting in some effort to improve local schools, occasionally rallying against economic inequity in South America and then dedicating a few minutes to the genocide in Darfur.
Basically, there is a threshold that you have to cross if you want me to care about what you are talking about. You have to prove to me that I should donate to your cause. When you try to do too many things, you will not cross my threshold for caring on any of them. All your programs will come off as sloppy, disorganized and amateurish, just like the one I described at the beginning of this piece.
But if you were putting the real time and effort into one or two things, then you fly right by the finish line for my attention. I would be all ears and emptying out my pockets.
So remember kids, less is more.
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Alex Baskin is a freshman who has not yet declared a major.
