Here at Pace – Pleasantville, a major portion of the student population does not get involved in any aspect of campus life. In the same breath, it is a small percentage of involved students who run, and are a part of, multiple organizations at once.

The upside is that those of us who are involved in student organizations on campus are truly immersed. The goal is that we will all be getting something out of it: experience, relationships, resume space, references, confidence, maturity, etc. (Not to mention a variety of applicable real-life and workplace skills)

While it is nice to make contacts with other active students, it can become monotonous to go to the same meetings every week and interact with the same people.

I am not talking about executive board meetings within your organization. I am referring to the Student Development and Campus Activities (SDCA) and Student Government Association (SGA) mandated meetings.

These meetings contain the small percentage of overly active students who argue about the same issues, semester after semester. Enemies, as well as allies, form as a result of a lack of turnover in involvement.

There is probably less than two hundred of us who are involved on campus, so we all get a decent, working knowledge of one another in a personal and professional capacity.

Members of Greek organizations form relationships with members of SGA, cultural organizations form biases against non-profit organizations, and so forth. This is completely normal because we are all human.

However, because the same group of people run for similar, if not higher, positions in the same organizations year after year, it becomes more difficult to change their ways by senior year.

First-year students and sophomores often have to wait until their junior or senior year to run for desired positions, because there is an assumed vote for those who are running for re-election.

I have been in meetings where students, backed with evidence and a hard work ethic, have offered fresh perspectives on issues, and they were shut completely down because “So and so” tried to accomplish that two years ago and they could not do it.

I feel that because involvement on this campus is so condensed, there is little room for improvement. We wonder why there is not a big influx of new students looking to join clubs, but it is not the easiest thing in the world to try to find a place among 200 of the same “eager beaver” students, year after year.

Personally, I have found my diamonds of professional and personal relationships within the sea of resume-building, plate-overfilling, sleep-deprived undergrads that I resonate so well with.

There are those, however, that make me wonder how I ever received the courage to get involved with various organizations here at Pleasantville.

To first-year students, sophomores, and transfers I say: jump into what fuels your passion and do not let any organization veteran push you out of the way.

To my fellow upperclassmen: know when to stand your ground, but also know when to hang up your ego and pass the torch.