Students: selfish and inconsiderate?
Over the past few weeks, complaints have been received from several sources about the behaviour of Imperial students around campus. The criticisms all share one common feature: accusations of students’ lack of discipline and respect for their college.
The front page of Felix this week shows a letter received from an offended visitor who was appalled at the lack of consideration that students in the JCR showed for their surroundings as they left the place covered in litter and uneaten food. He went on to question the prevailing attitude amongst the offenders, and to maintain that “tidiness in (the) scientific world is essential.”
Whilst the letter is phrased as a gentle reprimand of the student body, it follows similar complaints received by Felix over the past few weeks, seeming to follow a trend of people becoming distressed at the lack of care that students show for their environment and colleagues. One can only speculate what the 78 year old author would have thought had he learned of the events surrounding the Royal School of Mines (RSM) Freshers’ Dinner.
Felix has learned, from sources at the event two weeks ago, that the hosts of the “most notorious night of the year” have been temporarily banned from holding a ‘sit-down’ dinner whilst its future is debated. Sources close to the event have alleged that the dinner involved abuse of the traditional “fining” system (where freshers are commanded to drink large quantities of alcohol for committing offences such as sitting down before the president, and removing a jacket at the wrong time) which apparently continued for over an hour, breakage of a large quantity of glassware, a food fight at dessert, copious amounts of vomit, and an unknown person urinating into a pint glass and leaving it to be found by the staff. The dinner was finished early after staff ordered them to leave when the dessert was found to be decorated over the walls.
Whilst the RSM has been charged for damages and forced to apologise, its already poor reputation has not been improved and serious questions are being asked about the event, which seems to become more extreme in its abuses each year.
“Our dinner runs in a similar fashion, with traditional fines and freely accessible wine,” said one CGCU member following their union dinner, ”but the RSM take it far too far. They’re just animals.” Indeed, comparison to the popular CGCU Freshers’ dinner portrays the RSM in an even more negative light, after it passed “pleasantly all round,” and without major incident.
Most worrying is the RSM’s reaction to the incidents. Whilst they have officially apologised to College catering, an article that was submitted to Felix following the event (see “Just Another Night in the RSM”) shows their point of view on the subject, “pools of regurgitated joy” and all.
For decades now, debate has been rife across society surrounding the “youth of today” and their seeming decline in “values” and “discipline.” Perhaps this is just another case of society’s changing formats. But when “the youth” begin to shock not just the previous generations, but their own contemporaries, something must be very wrong with the population.
