When applying for housing as a first year, you are forced to choose your top three Living Learning Communities (LLCs). The LLCs are all centered around certain interests, aspirations or majors. However, the freedom to choose your LLC is misleading.
Those requiring certain majors or academic colleges limit the LLCs available to pick from. Some also require extra courses on top of students’ regular schedules. I ended up in the Emerging Leaders LLC, which has an extra two credit hour “required” course. I was automatically pre-registered for the course and believed it was required. However, when I showed up for the first day of the class, I realized that not everyone apart of our LLC was in the “required” class, my roommate being one of them.
Miami University’s LLC system is unfair and disappointing. Miami should either eliminate the LLC system entirely or implement the system for sophomore housing. The system requires extra work adding to the already overwhelming stress first-year students face.
I have also noticed that some of the LLCs are treated better than others. For example, the Emerging Leaders LLC gets the renovated Dodds Hall; however, the smaller LLCs like Explore Miami and Guys in Engineering do not.
On top of the inequality and extra workload, the LLCs fail at their main purpose: Helping first-year students find their people.
Miami is not doing enough to help the LLCs provide a sense of community among its residents. It is rare for students to have time to attend events hosted by the RAs. Students are either busy with class, studying or occupied with other organizations during the events. There is simply little incentive or opportunity to connect with the other students.
Miami should get rid of the LLC system for first years because it has no genuine effect on the communities we make. Most people find their true friends in the clubs and organizations they join during their first year.
However, Miami could benefit from having LLCs as an option for sophomore housing. This way people have more of an opportunity to live in the same hall as friends from their clubs and organizations.
The system fails to allow each student to join the LLCs they want most, and members of the Honors College miss out on the LLC seal on their diplomas. Add to this the general failure to follow through with the sense of community promised to incoming students, and the system seems to be missing its purpose. Implementing the LLC system for sophomores will help to incentivize first years to get involved and commit to a club or organization, and that is where true community is formed.
Jamie Gowans is a first-year student in the Farmer School of Business. She is a marketing major with a history minor. She is a first-year writer for The Miami Student.
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