Students, unknowingly, work in the interest of each other says columnist Saahil Waslekar.
As students of Lund University we are always on the move. University life makes us among the most active set of people across any given sphere of work. At the same time each of us undertake some very interesting activities. These may include, singing in a choir, performing in a Spex, travelling with a travel group, working at a Nation or even working towards achieving a high quality thesis.
Each of these activities and many others which are similar, have one feature in common. While students take part in group activities, directly to their interest or exploring something new, they contribute to each other. Although, student contributions have a hidden benefit.
Chancho is a card game where the objective of each player is to collect all four cards in a set, for instance, all 2s in the deck and slam the set in the center of the group screaming ‘chancho’. The game is initiated by the ‘announcer’. This is the person who directs the game. The announcement might be, ‘one card to the right’, ‘two cards to the left’, ‘four cards in the center’ or any such movement with the aim of achieving a total of four identical cards to pronounce ‘chancho’. Every announcement, not only benefits the announcer but unknowingly also benefits other players of the game. Such are our actions as students in the university world. Our actions have an impact on others without us even knowing.
When every student performs activities most appealing to themselves it really benefits every other student. Every student’s involvement in an activity enriches the experience of others simply by being a part of the activity. The question that really surfaces then is, why cannot this be possible in the real world. Is it due to the involvement of money, for student activities are majorly voluntary.
On one side, students gain the experience of studying in an international environment to prepare for the real world but once in the real world, principles learnt during university fail to transfer to real world practices.
Of course the real world does not work on a voluntary basis. This means that there are lessons from student life which can be carried forward. Probably, the greatest lesson is, actions performed by students at Lund University take everyone forward with them, for no one wants to distribute the cards all by themselves even after having won chancho.
