With graduation season coming in hot, seniors everywhere are getting their cap and gowns situated, as well as their sashes and cords. It can be extremely exciting to collect those cords and medals for all of the organizations you were a part of during your years at college. However, what seems to be the new trend is students joining clubs at the very last minute just to have more cords for the ceremony and the pictures. The question is should this be allowed? Does it not diminish the work put in by others who have been a part of the organization and putting work into its growth and stability?
There are many videos of people on tik tok and instagram boasting about how they joined organizations in the last few months of their senior year so that they can get the cords, or simply skipping joining anything at all and instead buying the cords on amazon. Personally, I think amazon is the better option. I go to a smaller school and my clubs do not have many people in them. The people who are in the clubs I am a part of have to work hard to sustain the clubs and really have to be involved in the events and activities we plan, otherwise it doesn’t work. If someone waltzes in at the last minute and declares themselves a member without putting in any work towards the club, I feel that it is disrespectful not only to the club, but to the other members of the club who are working and putting in the effort.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with joining a club in your last year, of course I will always encourage people to join organizations at any stage of their college career. The issue is that people are joining these clubs two months before graduation and not only are they not going to the last meetings, events and ceremonies, I’ve had multiple people in my clubs not even come to the induction ceremony. How can you consider yourself part of an organization and yet do less than the bare minimum?