Westminster, Md. -The past few years have been a rollercoaster for many faculty members along with students to adjust to the rapidly changing environment that is the media and digital workplace. Not only is connecting on social media instantaneous, but it has led to the formation of new organizations and clubs on campus.
Anton Randazzo, a first-year student from Chevy Chase Maryland, decided to make an Interact Club during the Jan Term semester at McDaniel College, he along with Sydney Carter tried to host multiple events to bring the first-year students more closely together as a student base.
“I just wanted to bring everyone together as there weren’t that many events for people to attend,” Randazzo said, reflecting back two months ago on the Jan Term semester. “I feel like since social media is so easily accessible, why not use it to create digital communities to grow friendships.”
Another purpose of the Interact Club was to engage students who were not in varsity athletics along with Greek life. A lot of the clubs on campus are very informal and don’t have much participation among the students. This is why Randazzo and Carter decided to take a different approach with engaging students more online and having events posted on Instagram, instead of on “What’s up McDaniel”.
Unfortunately, The Interact Club never got admitted as an official student club at McDaniel College. Despite that, hundreds of first year students participated with the online community during the Jan term semester.
Besides the Interact Club, multiple social media platforms such as Instagram and snapchat have been used to connect McDaniel as a whole. Looking at the numbers for Instagram, 84 students are in a McDaniel group for 2029, compared to over 200 students in a McDaniel group across all four years.
Snapchat on the other hand has everything divided by what year the student graduates the college, for first-years, there are over 110 individuals in the McDaniel 2029 community.
Ava Savelli, another first-year student from Denton Maryland, had a few thoughts on social media and how it has helped her build friendships at McDaniel. “It’s definitely helped me; I’ve met a lot of people through the McDaniel college page,” Savelli said. “I also met my roommate online through Instagram.”
Jazlyn Sivak, another first-year from Riva Maryland, had some different opinions on social media. “I feel like social media has had mixed feelings for me,” she said. “Sometimes people use social media as a status game; however, I find it very good for student connection, I LOVE sending Instagram reels to my friends.”
Social media is not only changing the landscape for how we are receiving and learning material in the classroom. But also shaping what kind of connections we are building outside of the classroom. While there are downsides to how the media is perceived to the general public and its reluctancy to some consumers online. College students should embrace the digital world for what it is and make the most out of the benefits given to them in this generation.