I have officially survived three weeks of school at LATC, and one thing I have learned the most in this time is how to be patient, or at least that I am going to HAVE to be very patient. Both with trying to host events and activities, and directly dealing with the students themselves.
Some of the events I have put on this year have been pretty hit and miss, and it has been a little discouraging. Not only did my beach day not work out, but I was trying to give away free tickets for a concert that the GOSS was hosting last weekend. I had about 40 students sign up for a ticket, but when it came time to come get it, only 2 or 3 of them actually did. I tried posting something on all our social media channels, sending out a mass email, putting up fliers, putting it on our TVs; I literally did everything except physically put the ticket in their hand. I\’m not sure if they changed their mind, or weren\’t paying any attention, but it was frustrating.
I also tried to start a run club at LATC, but only one person showed up the first day. I felt kind of bummed, but when TWO people showed up the second day, I\’m not sure why, but I felt good about it. I thought if we kept increasing like that, we\’d eventually have a pretty good group. Unfortunately, I was the only one who showed up this entire week, and when I tried to put something out on social media about it, a student starting whining to me about how a run club wasn\’t a good idea during COVID. Although I disagree, I can\’t help but wonder if others have that same thought, and that\’s why they\’re not coming. I might try to give it another week and see what happens, but I\’m sad to say I may be giving up on this club. I will just encourage people to join WARC instead.
Intramural softball also started this week, and while that was a great turn out – I had 16 teams sign up – I ran into a few hurdles the night of the event. I had to get after a few teams for smoking and drinking, and just being kind of stupid. And while I expected it to happen, I was still kind of annoyed that I had to get after so many people. It also makes me nervous, because I\’d really hate for a few people to ruin the experience for everyone else. But I guess that\’s college for you!
I\’m also really surprised at how many PARENTS I\’ve had to talk to since school started. Asking questions about how to sign up their kids for events, or where to go for this or that. I get that these kids are young, but they are in college now! They need to learn how to do things themselves. My parents didn\’t go to college with me, and I had to figure out stuff on my own once I was there. At some point, ya gotta grow up and figure it out yourself.
So, overall, this week was a little frustrating, but this is my job now. I need to accept that this is going to be a norm, and I need to learn how to be patient when dealing with these kind of situations. I\’ll learn from the activities that don\’t work out, and I\’ll figure out what people are actually interested in doing. Hopefully I can get some better attendance at some upcoming events. If anyone has any ideas, I\’m always open to them!
Thanks for listening to me vent. I\’ll hopefully be in a better mood next week 🙂
Until next time! 🙂
Megan Reiffenberger