One of the biggest reasons I came to Iowa State for school over schools such as Michigan State, Penn State and the University of Wisconsin, was due to the strong sense of community.

When I came to visit Iowa State, I saw this sense of community. I saw geeks hanging with jocks, choir girls hanging with sorority girls, etc. It was a pleasant site to see coming from a clique-dominated suburban Chicago high school.

When I started at ISU in 2008, I got a feeling of this sense of community, but was unable to experience it due to an anti-social floor. I turned to places outside of my residence hall to meet people and I did.

Unfortunately, my three best friends from last year did not return to ISU this year and my circle of friends fell apart.

This year, I have a much more social floor and am getting along with most of the people living there; however, I am not feeling the sense of community that I felt last year. I do not see people hanging around people that are different from them and I also see an elimination of easy access. I also do not see any freshman, but rather new students that were just too old to go to high school for another year.

This is not high school. Cut the clique and judgemental crap out and go meet all sorts of new people, since it has no place here and it takes away that sense of community that drew many people including me to ISU. Life is not about keeping what you have, but finding what you don’t have. So take those social blinders off and go meet a ton of new and different people.

Brian Greenfield

Sophomore, open option