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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 6, 1999)
le Battalion Opinion Page 13 • Monday, September 6, 1999 i 11 a.m.-2p.r i, 229-7500 , 680-0710 irman, 680-0?'' Out of the fish bowl "ish Camp can mislead freshmen with unrealistic views of Texas A&M I \lpha espite the fact that approxi- ately 4,700 in- ^nAng fresh en attended sh Camp this Bner, there H not many fie Of Everting their sh Camp T-shirts on the first es 6-8fiy of classes. >use Miis is probably because it is 5:30-87 trd enough being freshmen I ithout wearing shirts that make 7-8f'em stand out even further. Coming into Aggieland, fresh- II DinneCA en not usua iiy have a fully Jeived idea of what daily life College Station is going to be ^e. Hie University has programs ;e Fish Camp, New Student ^'inferences, Freshman Orienta- dent, 695-82; )r i Week and so on. % l&e purpose of each of these is give the newcomers a glimpse r' ENDEAR Af^'elaiid and the innumerable ' ' ‘tails of daily life. However, as important and ef- ctive as these programs may be, ■-ey are not perfect — including sh Camp. In helping the new freshmen arn about Texas A&M, many 3>unselors at Fish Camp mislead eir freshmen about the reality of >llege life. Fish Camp is a rushed process here new students come in as dividual high school graduates ch Steak Hoi TEA an. call man, 680 )meg 999 but leave a close-knit group of Aggies full of Aggie spirit. And while Aggie spirit is, without a doubt, a good thing, there can al ways be too much of a good thing. Being over-exposed to Aggie spirit, all too often some fresh men come out of Fish Camp thinking every day at A&M is go ing to be like the last four. While Fish Camp is far from some insidious brainwashing trick, it is an intense four-day af fair where freshmen are exposed to the Aggie spirit pumped up to the n-th degree. Everything at Fish Camp, whether explicitly stated or not, is directed at introducing freshmen to what living in Aggieland is like, but the overzealous mentality and gung-ho Aggieness fostered by Fish Camp is simply not a true representation. Of course it is not likely to see counselors tell their fish, “When you get to A&M, not everybody is going to be as enthusiastic as I am.” But Fish Camp counselors should realize the impression they are giving freshmen about the rest of A&M students is not al ways true to reality. There are some 900 Fish Camp counselors and each of them is excited to be working with these freshmen. That is great, but there are roughly 42,000 other students at pus) A&M the freshmen did not spend four days in the woods with and aren’t going to be so overly enthusiastic about all things Aggie. In general, daily life at this University is not much different from anywhere else in the world, but you would not know it by watching some Fish Camp counselors at work. The picture counselors paint of Aggieland would have everybody saying, “howdy” and jumping on freshmen for “pulling out.” In reality, “howdy” is tucked neatly into its ma roon colored shoe box until Howdy Week rolls around when some people take it out to feel good about keep ing the tradition alive. And as for “pulling out,” unless a freshmen is in the Corps of Cadets, chances are nobody is going to say any thing about “whooping” when he or she gets an A on a difficult test. And despite what some counselors might say, if someone asked them at Fish Camp, the distance between the MSC and Sbisa is not 2003 steps. Certainly the counselors are not intentionally trying to mislead their freshmen, but if their job is to intro- Jeff Smuh/Thk Battalion duce the new students to life at A&M, shouldn’t their own actions be a fair representa tions of just that? The transition into college life is a tough one and fresh men do not need anymore obstacles in their way. Fish Camp should not have to be a boring, factual, sign-on-the-dotted-line type of introduction to A&M — that is for the New Student Conferences. However, the staff should get a grip on what daily life in Aggieland is really like and tone down their overly inten sified Aggie spirit during camp. Despite what some counselors might think, building the Aggie sprit can not be finished in just four days. It is something that grows with Aggies as they learn more and more about A&M through their time spent on campus and even after gradu ation. If counselors take a more realistic approach to their freshmen and lighten up on the full-frontal Aggieness, they can refrain from giving a false impression to their freshmen of what to expect during their days at A&M. Eric Dickens is a junior English major. 7-9 p.' ntry Club 7-9 p.i i 8 p.m. n, 695-1019 , 255-3305 Absentee advisers Undergraduate faculty missing n action at beginning of semester v Fheta -all 199S here must be a room on campus in lich all academic visers congre- te, sip coffee and itch soaps dur- 5 the first few ?eks of school. - ELIZABETH KOHL 6-8 p" :ks k BBQ TEA TEA It is as if they ve extended their summer vaca- n for a week or two. 5.7 ; 3[ Anyone who has ever tried knows at getting in to see an adviser at 5-7:313 beginning of the school year is arly impossible. Speaker 6-8pfHying to go to the office will usu- y get you little more than a heat oke. Students or faculty members irking at front desks are profes- mals when it comes to sending idents across campus to talk to meone else. in They seem to derive a certain landers 680-09£ ?asure f rom especially anytime enghaus 846-c. ? y can ^ stU( j ents to cross Well- rn.Calling an adviser’s office dur- 5 the first few weeks is just as fu- WTHERHO^. Once again the secretary ones, “I’m sorry, none of the ad- >ers are seeing anyone right now. xild you like me to make an ap- ————■'intment for you in November?” One seriously begins to wonder if nu: visers are aware that add-drop I rill ly lasts one week. Students who have become well 1 quainted with these academic of- . es have learned to expect a hassle o.ju-o.j - leri scheduling problems occur. 6 where we live) Just because one has an adviser es not mean he or she has ever 7-8:30 p.moken with him or her. Granted, making an appointment th an adviser guarantees that one neSandXrsi 11 f e them ~ eventually. 6;3O-8:30 f After sitting around campus for a ;k s v hours and waiting in the office iome stick) ' another 30 minutes, a student is Chapter 6:30-9 : . a lly permitted a moment of talk : House le. But a single moment seems to ... all it is. BA Invitation* Advisers rus h students into their n personal contact'jc^ s h them down, smile and in- ZttSZ td uce themselves, but then a stu- nt has seven minutes, so it better 3 83g7 unt. One reason for the hassle at Byers 694-163^ beginning of the school year and P House 696-i’ ; 'oughout is the advising system it- orgs/pikapp f. According to the Undergraduate talog, academic advising is coor- rated by department within the lieges. JND BELIE Most departments have at least o full-time “advising specialists,” limiting the staff available to stu dents. Early scheduling difficulties are settled by a few questions any one could ask and several key strokes at the right computer. By training students to work with the advising computer systems this problem could be temporarily allevi ated during the beginning of the school year. Students are often better aware of what they need than those entering data in the first place. In addition to full-time advisers, faculty members are also available to students for advising. Since the only way to be forced into many classes is directly through the professor, this policy makes sense. However, few faculty members make it clear that they have the ca pacity to advise, leaving students to refer to the two advisers allocated to their department. A simple note on a syllabus or a posted list of available advisers in the department office could make an already congested system slightly smoother. Students talking to advisers real ize that they have a lot of paper work to offer. Advisers listen attentively as backwards schedules and upper-lev el problems are explained. Yet, advisers hands are often tied when it comes to actually solving these problems. There should be a little piece of paper taped to every advisers desk which states exactly what everyone should be taking and when. Telling a student to take what he or she wants or changing the order in which the degree plan recom mends, seems to be a cardinal no- no. An adviser who is going to read the Undergraduate Catalog or class schedule would save themselves and who they are trying to help much time by simply handing them the original catalog. For any student experiencing scheduling difficulty there is always an upperclassman or the Undergrad uate Catalog to refer to. Otherwise good luck finding the little room with the coffee pot, televi sion and huddled group of advisers. Elizabeth Kohl is a junior accounting major. Access before improvement From The GW Hatchet at George Washing ton University (U-WIRE) WASHINGTON — The College Board recently released some encouraging statistics concerning the number of minori ties taking the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). A higher percentage of students who took the SAT last year were minorities, al though minority performance on the test re mains well below national averages. Minority student participation in the SAT increased by a third over the past decade. Showing improvement in the statistics were African-Americans (seven-point increase, 856 average score in 1999), Puerto Ricans (28/903) and American Indians and Alaskan Natives (42/965). Mexican Amer icans (12-point drop, 909) and Hispanic/Latino (-5/927) test-takers fared worse as a whole, although the influx of par ticipants in these groups might account for the decrease. The College Board announced it will of fer SAT courses on the Web, which should help students who cannot afford expensive test preparation courses. Yet, online SAT preparation courses will help only students who have Internet ac cess. The problem with the online service is that the students who lack Internet ac- COLLEGIATE ROUNDUP from U-Wire editorial reports cess are often the same students who can not afford expensive test preparation cours es. In these cases, the online SAT prepa ration material will not help. The newest statistics from the College Board show clear progress for minorities, not in the form of increased scores, but in increased access to the SAT and therefore higher education. Before a strategy can be devised to raise minority scores, the test must first be accessible to minorities. The College Board is going in the right direction by offering free SAT preparation courses on the Web, but the real answers concerning disparities in scoring must start long before senior year in high school. Netting cheaper books From The Diamondback at U. Maryland (U-WIRE) COLLEGE PARK, Md. — E-com- merce has finally begun to take a foothold in the business of book retail. For students and their bank accounts, that is a good thing. These Web-based companies are able to tap into a database of available books and can distribute them for up to 40 percent off the list price, they claim, in less time than it takes to register for classes. (We saw a lower 10-20 percent difference in a random sampling of texts.) More Websites offering college texts ap pear literally everyday. Varsitybooks.com has made a serious effort to publicize on this campus, as have theuzone.com and textbooks.com. All three had ads in The Di amondback yesterday, and textbooks.com was handing out free cups. Instead of hav ing two stores to buy books from in College Park, there are at least seven available through the Internet competing for student dollars and inevitably knocking prices down. Beware, however, of steals that seem too good to be true for they probably are. Often, delivery services can bring the price of a. text back up to the list price, or over, if it is an express delivery. And there aren’t many selections discounted the advertised 40 or 50 percent on any of the sites. The only cloud on the e-commerce hori zon is the profit the companies aren’t see ing. Amazon.com posted a negative $5.8 million net income in 1996 and in 1997, listed a $27.6 million net income loss with the Securities and Exchange Commission. If the premiere e-commerce company cannot post net earnings, it may mean that e-commerce’s future is dim. And if online textbook companies do not start offering genuine discounts and benefits instead of their empty “save up to ...” promises, their ends may be near as well. Then again, stu dents trying to save 20 bucks on engineer ing texts may just keep the market alive. Venezuelan leader fails country's interests MARIANO CASTILLO I n the last few weeks, citing that corruption must be cleaned up. President Hugo Chavez shut down Venezuela’s Supreme Court. Not even a month later. Con gress shut down, giving Chavez what many political analysts consider dictatorial powers. President Chavez insists he and his newly formed Constitutional Assembly are working within the law and that everything will be back to normal as soon as the new constitution is finished. Still, many international ob servers, especially in the United States, are wary that Venezuela’s 40-year-old democracy is on the brink of extinction. As hegemon in the Americas, the United States’ main interest in keeping Venezuela a democ racy is to ensure that it remains in its sphere of influence. The United States could care less about poor people in Venezuela as long as they are willing to work for pitiful wages to export oil to the United States. If the government in Venezuela were to drastically change, the United States might have to turn to the Middle East as its primary source for oil. It is the poverty stricken citi zens of Venezuela, over 80 per cent of the nation’s population, who are left with no allies. When they heard the battle like cries from Chavez for revo lution, they perked their ears and got their hopes up, seem ingly for nothing. If the United States is gen uinely dedicated to preserving democracy and freedom, the na tion’s attention to Venezuela should be toward the mountains in Venezuela, wriich are over crowded with people, disease and crime, and not toward the political and economic games its government plays. Organizations such as the United Nations are not involved enough in situations like this. If they would set their priori ties as ideally stated in their constitutions and placed human lives before politics, the rest would follow. If the United States or United Nations began incentives in Venezuela to help the poor, why would the people even consider electing someone with a shady past like Chavez in the first place? An editorial in the New York Times last week thoroughly bashed Chavez and his attempts to shake the country back into shape. The same week two rep resentatives, Cass Balleger, R- N.C. and William Delahunt, D- Mass., traveled to Venezuela on a fact-finding mission and re ported that everything was be ing done constitutionally. /"i Venezuela's 40-year-old democracy is on the brink of extinction." While these opposing argu ments are being swallowed up by the media and debated by journalists, political analysts and economists, the heart of the issue is being lost. In short, the poor are losing again. All of the international at tention that Chavez’s politics and his manipulation of power has brought to Venezuela is making investors wary. Companies from around the world now see Venezuela as a very unstable market both eco nomically and especially politi cally. No one is willing to risk investing in this nation, which has so much potential and so many resources. Many companies that were in Venezuela before the elections have begun to pull their opera tions out. This translates into a loss of jobs and a lack of new jobs. The economy in Venezuela is frozen. In the end, to the people that need change the most, the poor, it does not make a difference if Chavez becomes the next Fidel Castro or if he is assassinated to morrow. It does not matter to them if Venezuela becomes a democracy, dictatorship or even a communistic state. All they want is a brighter fu ture at whatever the cost. It is unfortunate for them that nations and organizations with such wealth and power as the United States and the United Nations choose to ignore the problem and worry about their own selfish advancement. It is truly sad to see that the . United State’s main motives for involvement are keeping gas cheap and keeping Venezuela as one of its politi cal string-puppets. » Mariano Castillo is a sopho-; more international studies major. •