Homecoming is disappointingly underwhelming for current students, and the school shouldn’t advertise it as this hugely anticipated yearly event; it’s just an excuse for week-long drinking and alumni to revisit old haunts.
While school spirit is certainly something to be encouraged, the university shouldn’t continue to advertise Homecoming if it’s essentially just a Greek Life and honorary circle-jerk.
Where do we start? It’s basically just a football game with ordinary tailgating, and that’s all it is to people who don’t know everything that Homecoming is about.
While there is a modicum of advertising, current students might just think it’s a normal week until they see Chain Gang drinking at 6 a.m. on the UA Snapchat story.
The university does a poor job of making this event a socially uniting school spirit event on many fronts. For example, there are plenty of events that take place around Homecoming—the lighting of “A” Mountain, a big tailgate, parties throughout the week—but certain social groups host them (read: Greek Life and honoraries). If you’re not affiliated, you’re most likely uninvolved.
It sounds to me that Homecoming is another excuse for those select groups to advertise how great they make themselves out to be and to get piss drunk at parties, bars and assorted places around campus.
In addition to this “yay us” mentality, there is also the Homecoming court.
The crowning of King and Queen of the Homecoming court is a beauty pageant located at arizonaalumni.com/royals.
Technically everyone is eligible for those positions, but it seems that sororities and fraternities, or non-affiliated people supported by Greek Life, have the only chances of winning. Not only is this not fair, but it’s also a huge issue of inclusivity on the university’s part.
For example, this year is also the 100th anniversary of Greek Life, coinciding with this year’s 101st Homecoming, and really that’s indicative of the whole shebang. If you’re not part of Greek Life, you might be better off just not participating in Homecoming’s “activities,” unless you’re absolutely into watching the football game or you’re just super into school spirit.
If this is the university’s way of telling the student body to build connections, they’re going about it all wrong, and Homecoming definitely isn’t the event to do it. By organizing an event that predominantly features specific sections of campus life, the entire university is not represented and the concept of home is blurred.
Another largely advertised part of Homecoming is that it serves as an event where alumni are free to come back and celebrate school pride. Not only is Greek Life being glorified by Homecoming, but now we have hordes of alumni traipsing through campus, reliving their glory days in the middle of midterms.
Homecoming is nothing but an underwhelming experience to those like me who will never really get to be active participants. When I ask friends what they’re doing for Homecoming, the answers are usually “nothing,” “It’s Homecoming?” or “What is Homecoming?” The general consensus is bleak.
Either the institution is doing a poor job of advertising Homecoming, or it truly is an example of an event that only a select group gets hyped about.
Either way, Homecoming is nothing more than a glorified, week-long theme party.
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