Northwestern University

A couple of weeks ago, I visited Northwestern University’s main campus in Evanston, Chicago. It was my first time, and thus was curious to compare it to Qatar’s campus. I was extremely surprised with large number of students involved in extra curricular activities and clubs, and most importantly their respect towards Northwestern’s traditions and rituals. During today’s class, I thought the functionalist theory was extremely similar to the social structure in NUE. The campus is stable, orderly and systematic. Everybody has a specific role and are divided into groups; resulting with the lively and outspoken campus we have today. They all collaborate together and respect one another’s opinions, even though they may not agree with it. For example, there are many accapella groups, sororities and frat houses spread across campus, and although each group may have different personalities, they all acknowledge each other in a mature manner. I believe this campus also relates to the functionalist theory because without the help and organization of these students, professors and faculty, Northwestern university wouldn’t be moving forward. The campus would not be stable or as productive. Even social problems such as two clubs fighting over the historical Northwestern rock can make a positive contribution to the society. This will motivate them to stick to the rules to see if the other group will give up on guarding the treasured totem. It will also allow the Daily Northwestern to have a story to write about. Another concept that we covered in class today, which reminded me of Northwestern’s main campus, was the idea of collective effervescence. During my trip, there was a baseball game that is extremely popular amongst Northwestern students. There are a certain number of seats saved for students in NUE and usually there is an extremely large turn out. During this event, there is a shared feeling of identity in which each student experiences waves of similar emotions and a sense of togetherness. They are all rooting for Chicago and wear Northwestern jerseys and sweatshirts to support their team. This is also considered a ritual as it forces students from different groups and organizations to gather together and reinforce their collective identity. Why do we have students, professors and faculty in Northwestern University and what do they contribute to that specific community? Why do we have different organizations and clubs? Why is there a different positions and roles for every individual? Without this structure, Northwestern University would not be able to manage all of their students or provide everyone with an activity that meets their needs and expectations. Although many sociologists criticize this theory, I personally believe it is an excellent fit for this university. Photos: The first photo is one of the many acapella groups in Northwestern. They are called Purple Haze. The second photo is how the rock looked like after we painted it. The third and fourth photo are from online sources

Tartans Got Talent

No, it is not a TV show; but an event that took place in Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar(CMUQ) in Education City this Thursday. The event showcased the talents of the various students studying in Carnegie Mellon, which included singing; playing instruments; rapping; beat boxing; and comedy. Other than that, the event is nothing like the show; there are no buzzers involved & nobody is judging anything. This event was open for students of all universities and even parents and siblings of students studying in CMUQ.



Since we covered Globalization and Glocalization for the previous class, I was thinking of the event in terms of five major elements of globalization – Multinational corporations; Ideology of capitalism; Governments; Resistance & Consequences. Lets start with the first element- multinational corporations. Now in every event that takes place inside CMUQ comes with free food for students. For this particular event the Shater Abbas restaurant was the sole caterer. Also, I had noticed the university had spent a large budget on special lighting and other effects for the area.



Hence, in this case, the restaurant and the companies providing the lighting and the audio equipment are the multinational companies involved.

Capitalism- The involvement of the multinational companied automatically paves way for capitalism or profits. Here, the restaurants that catered for the event earned a hefty profit. As mentioned earlier, a big budget was spent for lighting and audio equipment. The company responsible earned a big profit; also I have heard that the company increases its price for the effects every year. Moreover, the same event will occur next year as well and the Student Affairs dept. are planning to make it even better than this year.


Government- The forms of government involved here were the Student Affairs Department & the student body government (Student Majlis). All the performances were signed up and approved by the Student Affairs one week prior to the event. Also, Student Affairs and the Student Majlis handled the budgeting together.


Resistance & Consequences- There were a few conservative who were frustrated and disliked when girls were dancing during one of the performances. Moreover, there were a few students who were unable to participate as they came from conservative family backgrounds and their families were against it. All this contributes to resistance aspect of globalization. The consequences are not that many; however there are a few financial fallbacks. Since a large budget was allocated for the quality of this event; the other events that will be organized in CMUQ will be low-budgeted or cancelled (For example, previously there would a be a lot of free food events where every event staged within CMUQ would be provided with few food. However, in the recent years, very few events provide food due to decreased budget).

Every year, the event attracts hundreds of students across Education City from various universities. 

Bureaucracy and Education

            Seeking knowledge is an important task in life, as education becomes the building block of any field in life, from planting to architecture and so on. Not knowing about sociological theories and how does it shapes our understanding of life could block us from seeing things that lies beneath the word ‘education’ or educational institutes.

            Educational institutes usually work with the same guidelines. They all have rules; they’ll ask you what to do and what to prevent yourself from doing. Therefore, students or faculties are not the ones who put the guidelines for their actions in the campus; the one who has the ‘control’ is the dean, the owner of the university or someone who is responsible for the education in the country. Therefore, educational institutes tend to be utilitarian organizations that are classified also as bureaucratic. Students go to school, universities or any other educational institute in order to seek knowledge or gain a degree; hence educational institutes are utilitarian. Educational institute put guidelines and goals for achieving a higher rank of education and students graduating with a high degree in order to compete with other institutes and raise their honor, therefore they’ve a goal or value to achieve by having a certain control on the students, so it’s bureaucratic.

            But is educational institutes being bureaucratic and utilitarian is beneficial or helpless? From the point of view of society, guidelines set by educational institutes can cause social conflicts, as some rules might seem fair to one and unfair to another. For example plagiarism, as some people might get affected if someone copied their work without them knowing and at the end, the plagiarist and the victim of plagiarism will be responsible. However, from the point of view of the functionalist, rules and guidelines are necessarily for helping people to achieve a certain point as they put certain tasks with certain deadlines so that employees or students won’t delay their work and would learn this much in this time. But that also bring us back to the fact of being controlled by these guidelines that are set by someone in a higher statues, therefore, we cant satisfy both sides, education always have a functional purpose and a conflict.

            Not only the large educational institutes such as universities have rules and guidelines, however, even school nowadays provides student with a small book full of guidelines and rules to be followed. When I used to be in primary school or even secondary school, in Qatar schools never had a full book that tells you what to do and what to prevent from doing, but when I got to high school at the year 2007, guidelines and rules were filing life. Not only my high school “Al-Bayan” had a book full of guidelines, but also online courses, social and educational centers…etc. all had policies. Having such policies, didn’t allow me or any other person seeking knowledge to do what we actually want to do, as we all had to do this and that at that certain deadlines and if we didn’t do things the same why, we fail. Therefore, it’s not a choice to follow what it is giving to us if we want the knowledge or the degree; it’s a must or else, game over. 

            In someway or another, we can’t do everything we want to do without following anyone’s rules. There is always someone who leads us around. Can be negative, but also positive, as if we break all the rules and we did whatever we wish, we lose organization in life as well as everyone will have his/her own revolution. 

Confessions of a First Semester Freshman.

The ideal scenario for people who are fortunate enough to receive an education requires the completion of different stages in their educational journey, from the early years of kindergarten to the more challenging years of higher education. The more levels students complete, the better their chances are at getting a good job or a high salary. School is unquestionably a leading agent of socialization. Our years spent in educational institutions aim to shape us into well-rounded, well-informed individuals who can contribute positively to society in the future. We also learn certain life-skills that aren’t particularly outlined in an official syllabus but are just as important. This “hidden curriculum” demonstrates abilities such as interacting with other people from diverse backgrounds, building up our competitive nature in order to prevail in the real world and also teaching us the importance of discipline, timeliness and self-control. However, transitioning from stage to stage of an educational journey can be just as challenging as it is rewarding.

In high school, students are introduced to tracking systems in order to get the most out of the subjects they excel in. In university however, most classes are a mixture of students, from freshmen to seniors, all at different levels of their university careers. Another difference is the actual workday. Unlike the 7-hour-long days in high school, university classes are more lenient when it comes to scheduling, and it’s the time management and discipline skills we learned that help us with adjusting to that change. Students also become much more independent in college and aren’t “spoon-fed” as much as they were in high school to build up their self-image and character.

I’ll be the first to confess (as several other freshmen would); starting college was probably the most emotional, terrifying and exciting time of our lives so far. Emotional, because of the rapid changes we faced being away from family and friends; terrifying, because of the inevitable amount of stress, work and challenges coming our way; and exciting, because of all the opportunities that await us. With all the change happening though, I’ve realized that although high school is very different from university, it helped ease the transitioning process through both the formal and hidden curriculum.

As my first semester comes to an end, I have to admit it wasn’t the apocalyptic disaster I thought it would be…then again, finals are just around the corner so I probably shouldn’t speak too soon.

Kalekjya (كلكجيه)

“Kalekjya” is a term that is widely used by old Qatari people. It is used to describe deceiving people. The term is originally Iraqi, but through cultural diffusion it is used in gulf countries. The story of this term started, when I was on Facebook checking some of my friend’s photos. I came across album of Qatar’s national day 2010, where my friends and their relatives were participating in Qatar’s national day. They were on a traditional dhow, the dhow was very old and it was about 100 years old. One of my friend relatives had repaired and renewed this dhow. It was the oldest dhow to participate on that day. So part of their participation, was to act like sailors, in the old traditional way. His relative, who was mainly responsible of that, which had the experience, was teaching them what do and how to do it. So they were driving him crazy because they did not really do what he was asking them to do. So he was making fun of them by describing them with this word “Kalekjya”. They really liked it and started commenting on what he is saying. They still remember his word and used it so much even after the event.

The word is not so common for us as a young generation. At the beginning, I went to my mom asking her what this word means. She told me what it means and when to use it. In addition to, the word origin. After that I understood the word I use it so much in these days. So similar effects to what my friends had.

But this also made me raise the question. What makes my friends and I like this old traditional term. My friends and I are university students and every day we are learning something new. We always learn new terms, but we do not really focus on them that much and use them as the term “Kalekjya”. I tried to find an explanation and I ended up with this. I believe the term “Kalekjya” was really different because of the emotional response it stimulates in me and my friends. However, we are guys; we do not really have an emotional response to everything as girls do. Then the question is what stimulates our emotional response here. I believe it was sort of hidden cultural relativism. Some might say that I am using the term cultural relativism in the wrong way. However, that not true, because we have our own culture as young generation. This is different that our father’s culture and that is why I used cultural relativism term. Even if we do not feel that, we really tend go back to our father’s culture. We went back to it because we like it. This happened here because we liked the term” Kalekjya.”

Sources:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12823770@N06/4195865334/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dirty_dan/3378574830/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/paper_or_plastic/5286519459/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/5522833/2749335774/