At 8 a.m. last Friday, I dragged myself out of bed and peddled down to the Fulton Center for the most unpleasant of reasons. It was my first day of ASU 101, the five week long course required for all freshmen that, in theory, gives these students an overview of "the ASU experience." While my expectations for the course were anything but high, what I experienced in the next hour and a half was so meaningless, untimely, and insulting to my intelligence that I feel the class must be done away with immediately to prevent me, and other innocent students, from having to sit through it again this week.
Upon my arrival, a teacher's assistant addressed the class, which only consists of 19 students. Her presentation included showing a map of campus, and pointing out Murdoch Hall and Palm Walk. It also included specific instructions on how to log into MyASU online, and info about how to activate your ASUrite ID. Now if it's the sixth week of school and I don't know where Murdoch is yet, I am up shit creek without a paddle. If I haven't logged onto blackboard yet, it's a given that I have already failed my classes. To have a class that force feeds information that EVERYONE on campus already knows is not only unnecessary, its downright rude of the university to assume its students are that helpless and ignorant.
After the TA's presentation on "how to get to the classes you've been attending," the real course rhetoric, err ... content, got rolling. Backed by PowerPoint slides that looked like they were lifted off ASU billboards, the Instructor spat maroon and gold game about the success that President Crow is bringing Arizona State. "Doctor Crow is building bridges to the future," she said as a well-placed picture of the bridge across University Drive flashed behind her. She gave stats on increasing enrollment and increased funding for research. She practically bragged about the new buildings popping up around campus, particularly the Fulton Center where this class (and her office) is located. Ira Fulton even got a personal plug, in the middle of the class, being used as an example of how "the community supports ASU."
What the administration has essentially done with this course is written out a five week commercial for itself, and forced its faculty and staff to ram it down the throats of incoming students. There is no emphasis on the student AT ALL, even in a small class. It is all big money, big ideas, and big egos that are taught here. If this is what the University feels is important for freshman students to know, it is clear that they value your tuition and their image much more than your education.
After all this, I figured the class might still be good for one thing. At orientation, it was explained that ASU 101 classes would be divided up according to major, so I figured I might at least meet some other pre-law students. Once again, I was disappointed. There is not a single student in the class who shared my major, and as it turned out most of the other kids were pre-med. This meant the last half hour of class was spent discussing ASU's relationship with various medical organizations such as the Mayo Clinic and the Barrow Neurological Institute. The content did not apply to me in the least.
If ASU is going to go to great lengths to make a required class, they should, at the very least, make sure the content is meaningful, the purpose is clear, and that the ideas they give students at orientation are upheld. I feel no students will ever truly have a "common experience" at ASU, for we are all individuals. No class will change this. If any class is to be required, it should be focused on the academic success of incoming students, not the unnecessary inflation of the University's Ego. ASU 101 is not a good course, it's not a good idea, and it's not worth going to.
Joseph Dougherty owns the night.
Hit him up at joseph.dougherty@asu.edu
