Problem 6.1: Overmedicating

“The Daily Vitamin” is not so easy to swallow. Getting through the messages takes a toll and trying to retain all of the information contained in one of those little pills is impossible. I feel like I should be paying attention but the messages tend to be too long and there is fed tax to digest. For this reason, “The Daily Vitamin” feels more like a daily injection or a blood transfusion than a quick energy boost that a vitamin might provide. Maybe it should be called “The Daily Dialysis” instead?

Don’t get me wrong, I think there is something to the idea of OCS sending emails about various recruiting and networking events to the students, but how was it prescribed? Is it good for me? What are the side-effects? Should it be taken daily? Does my previous medical condition matter? When the vitamins are not daily, are we skipping and is that dangerous?

To improve the distribution, I would make messages shorter: one paragraph and a link to a longer article would be best. Then, if a student reads one of the paragraphs and finds it interesting, the student will click on the link and read the article. This way, I won’t be stuck reading things intended for 1Ls. In conclusion, whoever sends out “The Daily Vitamin” needs to take a chill pill. The length and frequency of these emails only serves to inoculate me against what could otherwise be useful information.

Problem 6.2: Not My Problem

Is the tuition going up next year? Anybody know? Anybody care? It seems that nobody cares. We are wasting lots of resources at Cardozo, so I guess we must be willing to pay even more. What is this grumbling about? Let me illustrate:

The Doors: There are two options to enter Cardozo on any given day (unless there is a special event in the lobby and then you take a walk): rotating doors and handicap accessible doors. Rotating doors were invented to moderate the inflow of visitors and to keep air-conditioned and heated air inside the building. When students charge through the other doors they let gusts of wind into the lobby, which makes people sitting in the lobby cold. It makes it especially hard for the guards to do their work comfortably. I don’t know how much warmer the streets of NY are made by Cardozo students exiting through the side doors, but I know that a fraction of my tuition is out there.

Too Much Food is Served: Each club receives a semester allowance from the SBA. The Cardozo Art Law Society received a whooping $2,115 this semester. As a member of the Art Law Society, I can say we are going to do great things with that money. And so will other clubs. How? We’ll compete for attendance and try to lure students in with food. With multiple events taking place simultaneously, the clubs always end up with perishable leftovers. Is there a way to figure out how much food needs to be order? Our budgets are not that generous and students are not camels; they do not store food for days from feast to famine. We should strive for more moderation here.

There should be a better way to keep track of events going on, so that clubs don’t hold meetings on the same days or order too much so that food is wasted. The Jurist, for one, has tried to keep a calendar of all events. The SBA, too, has made some efforts, unsuccessfully, to keep a similar calendar of all student events. Additionally, the Special Events office has a master list, but they are not sharing! In the age of Google Buzz, isn’t there somebody at this school who can synchronize all calendars, figure out when there are no events, when there are events with food, and how much food our school can consume at any given time?

Problem 6.3: Recycling is NOT optional

There are three types of garbage bins that I have seen around the school: brown generic trash bins, blue paper recycling bins and blue glass/plastic recycling. They are not too hard to find, and very easy to use. The bins with round holes are for empty containers that previously stored drinkable liquids and the bins with narrow slits are for paper, such as newspapers and printing paper. All other bins, distinguishable by lack of a recycling symbol and brown color, are for everything else.

Let’s review. Where should you dump your printouts from the last semester? The blue bin with the narrow slit. Right! Where should you toss a can from the diet soda or whatever else you just drank? The blue bin with the round hole. OK! And where did you actually put them? In the garbage bin?! That’s my point!