I recently conducted a preliminary online survey of several babson students. A few were friends of mine, but many were random. Leave a comment if you want the excel document used to calculate these results emailed to you. Here is the executive summary of some of the findings:

-          79% of students party off campus 3 times a month or less

-          69% of students think that there are few or no on-campus social event options

-          74% of students disagree with the Central Source policy

-          76% of students disagree with the No Drinking Games policy

-          68% of students agree with the statement:
“I drink at Babson because there’s nothing else to do” 

-          89% of students agree with the statement:
“I drink at Babson because it makes events seem more fun”

-          83% of students would never go to a Knight Party sober

-          In a list of 26 words that would describe a social life (11 positive, 10 negative, and 5 neither), a negative word was chosen 72% of the time, and a positive one only 5% of the time. The most popular word chosen was “repetitive”.

Jennifer,

I honestly appreciate you going into such detail with this, I thank you. I like to know these kind of things because I want to try to find ways to make my Babson experience, as well as the experience of my peers a more fun-filled one.

I know for a fact that my fraternity, as well the majority of other fraternities, see Greek Council as a financial burden and a complete waste of our time money, money which we could put towards tower beautification or our formal or any of the other financial responsibilities that we have as organizations. The idea of the Greek Social Committee was a spur of the moment one, and not thought out. As opposed to being completely unconstructive, and critical of everything, I prefer to offer possible solutions to the dilemma.

Greek Council sanctioned events are anything but fun. The Greek organizations will not be brought together by a peanut butter eating contest, or an egg-spoon relay race, or a motivational speaker. The reason why other campuses are not allowing alcohol during Greek week is because there exists a nearby venue at which the Greeks can call “home”, at a down trodden pub called “Mack’s” or something of the sort, where the interior is anything but pristine and the drink prices are low. Not only that, but there exists such a vast social scene with such a plentitude of things to do at any given moment, that no one feels the need to drink. They are content with just knowing that there are so many things to do, as well as so many places to go. On a Thursday night, the majority of other colleges have a choice of places to go. Whether its choosing which fraternity party to attend, or what’s the hot bar scene tonight, there exists that choice. At Babson, there is no such thing, and even if there is a party someplace on campus, there’s a more than likely chance that it will be broken up and people will get alcohol violations.

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a hero has risen on this campus; one who will rival all in his path to righteousness and personal as well as global salvation. his name will remain undisclosed, even though the majority of the people at this school already know who he is. i am talking about none other than -The Babo Slasher.

Last weekend i was at a party(gasp) that was abruptly and forcefully broken up by Babo(gasp #2), and they looked a little more pissed off than usual. i was standing in the hall with a beer, spiting them (as i am 21 and allowed to do so), and they were grilling two non-babson students about some shit that it clearly looked like they didnt do. Apparently, someone, in a divine act that would part the sea of campus spirit, slashed several of babos tires.

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….. hang on, let me collect my rage for a moment….

ok there we go, breath….

i can see pipes in my residence hall. PIPES hanging from the ceiling and in my bathroom. $168,000 and four years of GODDAMN PIPES! fuck the old dorms and those who live in them, lets decide to build a state of the art dorm, that looks at students and mocks them as they watch it being erected. i loathe those high powered, low energy consumption fourescent lights. i loathe just seeing the beams of iron, of the fence that surrounds it. i will loathe every single person that is living in them next year. i loate it mostly in the morning when i am woken up by the “absolutely necessary” noises of construction at 6 OCLOCK IN THE MORNING after having gone to bed a 3 becuase i had been up all night studying. its now about 2 in the afternoon… silence outside. nothing but the trees creaking and the leaves rustling. why… please tell me, of why! in gods name, would the majority of construction take place between the hours of 6 am and 10 am…. clanking, hammereing, explosions, detonations, dumping, beeping, more explosions, youd think theyre testing goddamn nuclear bombs down there or something.

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I think the “art work” displayed on the walls here at Babson is a perfect example of the complete lack of culture here at Babson. the cocoon. wow. some strings. cool. the thing looks like some cracked out 5th grader got his hands on too much dental floss. every time I walk by it I either want to cut it down, or fix it. it straight up looks unfinished. I don’t want to go to the opening of it, because I don’t want to make the artist cry by pounding criticisms into her face. what is it supposed to be commenting on? don’t get me wrong, I know that not all art is supposed to comment on something, but at least have it look cool, or be innovative in some way shape or form as to instill any kind of emotional connection with a viewer. theres nothing innovative about it. however, if the artist tripled the amount of time and string that were used, then that might show some kind of effort. or perhaps is something was “cocooned” into the insides of the piece.

something else that definitely gets the blood flowing, would have to be those miraculous sculpture things on the walls of tomasso. I don’t even know how to classify it. theres bits of wire, mesh, construction equipment, and things like that all woven intricately together on different 3dimensional planes, mounted vertically like a painting on a wall. I don’t even want to talk about that any more. I know exactly why there is a lack of a creative influence here on this campus. Babson, being a business school, attracts business oriented minds. minds that already know the ins and outs of arithmetic, but haven’t even heard of Monet or Manet, let alone could define the differences in the two.

so moving on to the most recent contracted artistic endevour by i think our “live in artist” (even more pathetic is that this god forsaken school now has to import our artists, as they have realized theyve shot themselves in the hypothetical foot by recruiting cookie cutter drones that they can cram with income statements, balance sheets, and cash flows, wind them up and kick them in a direction once graduated and say “FAREWELL MY LOVELY PEONS! DONT FORGET TO DONATE!”). ANYways, the sticks. jesus mary mother and joseph, the sticks. what is it? a canoe? a vaginal opening? or just a bonfire that hasnt been lit yet. what would be more artistic than a bundle of sticks sitting in the brown dirt, not standing out at all, would be if i burned them. that way all that persons “hard work” and effort (if you can call it that) that went into piling stripped sticks up into some kind of empty peapod shape would at least heat some homeless people for a night, or maybe i can cook some scrumptious smores over the blaze. not to mention the metaphors of creation of of distruction. those sticks would be more useful to be recycled into nature to feed a tree than they are right now. you want to do nature art? check out an artist by the name of andy goldsworthy. if you want compete with that genius, step off.

~sero

I remember when I got on the tour at Babson when I visited over the summer. I was amazed at how gorgeous the campus was; lush greenery, brilliant flowers, freshly laid mulch. but that’s the summer. even Afghanistan would look nice with a few tulips and some peat moss.

I should’ve tour in mid march, when we were were receiving our 89th inch of snow for the season, and every living thing around you is dead. except the squirrels. those rapscallions seem to flourish in this place, despite any weather conditions.

I know you’re saying “if you don’t like the weather, why did you come here?” fact of the matter is, i’ve lived in new England for about 14 years, never once have I complained about the weather. i’m a snowboarder, love the snow – love it. but that was when I was at home, and wasn’t burdened with the nations number one homework load and days that start at 8am and end at mid-night. I notice the poor weather much more at Babson than I ever did when I was home.

in my opinion, theres nothing better than a new England summer night. beautiful breeze, perfect temperature. slightly cool. perfect. but that’s the summer. its like theres an invisible wall that lines the perimeter of Babson, extending to the upper atmosphere, that corrals all the clouds, rain, snow, and generally bad dreary weather to directly above babson. Barefoot carries a key around his neck that unlocks the giant window near the top of the wall that lets the weather out.

~sero

we don’t have a bar scene within walking or short driving distance. well i guess theres boston, but my god, is it hard to navigate this city. last call at 2am? are you for real? then when you end up taking a bus or the T home, you wind up at the invigorating Wellesley college, or woodland hills, yet another car ride away from home.

why isn’t there a bus (a large bus) that Babson offers that goes directly into boston, drops us off somewhere, then picks us up late night, and comes back DIRECTLY to Babson? I use the word directly, bc yes I know there is some bus that leaves here or some crap like that, but it brings your to Wellesley, then Harvard, then MIT, then dallas, then munich, then anchorage, when is it getting to boston!? not only do I now have to waste two hours of my night just getting there, but i’ve sobered up bc I drank all of my road soda, and its making it that much harder to deal with these Harvard pricks who think they’re all godsends. id rather strap a Styrofoam helmet on, be loaded into a howitzer, cross my fingers, and hope that I land in front of a bar that isn’t going to take away my 6th fake ID in the past month.

~sero