Summer break is finally here, or we are at least at the point where our fantasies of sleeping for 12 hours and rereading all seven Harry Potter books have become so vivid that they prevent us from dealing with the reality of finals. Before our bubble pops and we are forced to barricade ourselves in an Earl Gregg Swem Library study room for 32 hours post-blowout, we would like to take a look at the best and worst aspects of the semester.
Thumbs-up to online student ingenuity; Zilify, OrderUp and Bannerstalker are all creative and effective attempts to solve irritating yet universal problems on campus, and we wish them and their creators the best of luck.
We give a thumbs-down to our rampant addiction to anonymous social networking pages like William and Mary Confessions. Human connection is good, but posting one’s deepest fears and anxieties to a sometimes spiteful and cruel audience might not be the healthiest thing in the world. That’s not mentioning the arrest of a College of William and Mary student for posting threatening comments on CollegiateACB, another anonymous website.
Another thumbs-up goes to all the exciting events this semester provided by AMP and the Student Assembly: Gavin DeGraw, Big Boi and Kendrick Lamar. AMP and the SA should be proud they were able to book such talented, well-known artists. (But thumbs-down for Aaron Carter, who destroyed our childhood when he made out with college students on stage and when we discovered his twitter.)
We’d like to give a sideways thumb to the City Council for expanding the housing density cap, but keeping the three-person rule. It’s good that the city has recognized the need for change in off-campus housing requirements, but a less restrictive obsolete rule is still obsolete.
A well-deserved thumbs-up to the College for purchasing the Hospitality House, which added hundreds of rooms for students (and will be home to a significant portion of The Flat Hat staff). This will allow Residence Life to take Chandler Hall offline next year for much needed renovations and other residence halls in the years to come. Plus, it’s a hotel. (Sorry, we just cannot get over the fact that we’re going to live in a hotel next year.)
Now we look to the year ahead: a new class in, a new class out. We say goodbye to our beloved senior friends and colleagues and hope we may find such love and fun in the next batch. To all the students, returning or leaving, we wish you the best of luck as we wrap up another year at the College.