By Miles Bett, Columnist
Do you like to dance? I do. I can’t do it very well, but I try. With a bit of arm flailing, twisting my hips side to side, and maybe wiggling my leg every time I think I’ve caught the beat. Wait, nope, missed it. It’s the effort that counts right?
I don’t mean to brag, but I am very good at one dance. Fantastic some might say. I’ve been doing it for years now and only recently found out that it’s more common than I thought. Can you guess what it is? It’s the “Hofstra Shuffle.” It packs all the same moves I use, though for some reason it’s not as fun. Oh wait, that’s because I am paying obscene amounts of money to do it.
For anyone finding themselves doing the “Hofstra Shuffle,” you are not alone. I will give you one example to lighten your heavy hearts. I am currently in London with a study abroad program. In order to do this I had to boogie, shuffle, slide and jive my way across campus for several months. I even had to grove my way across cyberspace just to make sure that when I come back in December, Hofstra doesn’t raise an eyebrow and ask me where I’ve been for the past four months.
I am currently at NYU, a school with close ties to Hofstra, but you wouldn’t guess it from what I had to contend with. The beginning wasn’t too bad, back when I was actually on campus.
But the moment I left, that’s when it all changed. I would get emails asking for a form from NYU. Easy enough, right? I go to NYU and ask for the form. They tell me it hasn’t been released yet. So I go back to Hofstra. Here’s what happens:
Me: “They haven’t release it yet.”
Hofstra: “Well, we need it by this date.”
What is a man to do besides sit quietly and watch as the date rolls around, ruffling my hair as it goes. It continued like this until I was actually in London and had to call and tell them I wouldn’t pay the fee for my payment being late. Funny, since I hadn’t actually received my billing form from Hofstra yet.
There are of course a thousand other instances like this, as I am sure you can relate. I’ve heard stories of majors and minors not being where they should be on someone’s DARS report, and sudden emails of deadlines missed because no one bothered to write of their existence until after the matter.
However, Hofstra has been wonderful in some regards. Scholarships and classes are just two that come to mind. Though come to think of it, those were more of an individual experience than a ‘Hofstra hive mind’ type situation.
Being a senior, my dancing days are approaching an end. Underclassmen will soon no longer be able pass me on the dance floor as I continue to jive, step, and groove my way back and forth across campus to fill out graduation forms, payment details and a final class schedule. However, to know it wasn’t just me, and that Hofstra makes everyone do the shuffle, is almost enough to make any student feel warm on the inside. That is, until you realize what that implies.