Clique behavior pervades college system

By Nadia Khalid     3/11/10 6:00pm

I'm another new face on campus: I transferred to Rice this semester, and I'm a member of Martel College. While learning about the university's traditions during orientation, I had no idea the college system would force me to experience the many trials and tribulations made famous by 2004's Mean Girls - that is to say, the trauma of a stereotypical high school with a preordained, hierarchical cafeteria seating system.Maybe I'm naive. I was certainly unaware that such a lifestyle, dominated by what most counselors across the nation have dubbed the "clique syndrome," could continue to exist within universities. Take lunch at Martel, for example. At first, it was an adventure: I would sit at a different table each day, attempting to meet as many students and learn as many Rice customs as possible. It was exciting at first, but I soon found that my plight was similar to that of Goldilocks as I failed to find my niche. Each chair was either too big or too small.

One day, I accidentally sat down at the athletes' table. (Yes, there is such a thing.) The conversation did not go so well: I am only slightly adept at badminton, so I felt especially like an outsider. But trying again, I sat down with the self-proclaimed "cool" kids the next day. The intellectual topics of conversation ran the gamut from "I can't believe I drank that much last night," to "How much are we going to drink tonight?" Needless to say, my chair at that table was just not right.

Now, I'll admit that part of this is because I'm new; part of it is because I don't have a group, a "clique," that I can as of yet call my own. But, as a fairly objective viewer of the social system here, I would argue that the much-beloved college system undermines any fair chance newcomers have of integrating into the system.

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In my hope to acclimate to these new surroundings, I recently decided to run for an executive position within the college government. What followed was both extraordinarily humorous and depressing. As students signed my petition for nomination, they would sigh as if they were signing their consent for an organ donation.

"Hey, I'll sign this," they said. "But just letting you know, you have no chance of winning." Stunned by such boosts of confidence, I asked why my chances of winning spanned from "never" to "no, really, never." The answer, I found, was rooted in the clique system I had observed at lunch: Since a certain group of kids had made the executive board at the college their own "group," it was impossible and socially unthinkable for someone outside this preordained group to attempt to run. I was praised for my "audacity of hope," to borrow Barack Obama's words of wisdom, and I marveled at the fact that the tiny hope I had of victory was considered audacious.

So while all of this might seem like a very long, convoluted rant, if you take nothing else away, consider this: When we transfers arrived at orientation, one of the deans told us this transition would be difficult, no doubt about it. But he also said it would be even more difficult if we did not try to immerse ourselves into our surroundings and experience new things. In trying to break this strange collegiate electoral system, hardened and blockaded by few and rather old faces, I realized one thing: Try as we might, we do not have the outlets available to allow us to prosper and succeed.

Sure, you can continue to go to your college government meetings, and you should definitely get involved in organizations outside of your college. But when it comes to the college itself, I cannot help but wonder: Have we lost our ability to discern? Have we become so simple-minded that we choose our leaders merely based on their popularity? It is both a sad and very telling feature that students, from what I've seen, run for positions because they know they are likely to win. (On the other hand, I have decided to run because of the tiny smidgen of a chance I have to attain name recognition.)

My advice to those of you in similar positions? Take heart and keep trying, because while those select few who run the system are not by any means poor or incompetent leaders, they do not constitute, to be sure, the entirety of Rice. In any event, if Mean Girls has taught us anything, it's that people like Regina George get hit by a bus at the end of the day anyway.

Nadia Khalid is a Martel College sophomore and transfer student from Bryn Mawr College.

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