On Why The SU is Exclusive

UCDCritic

The only reason people take part in the SU is for resources.

The are not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, they are self motivated for what's in it for them.

Such resources include:
Status
Power
Perks (free stuff)
Inner circle information (why the SU is in so much debt (the truth))

These people invest their time and effort so they will not want to share the fruits of their labour for free, by keeping others out it means more for themselves.

To backup my claim I offer the example of the complete lack of interest students have in SU Elections. For the last two years there has been only one candidate out of twenty thousand plus students running for SU president.

It is in the interest of those currently in the SU to make other people uninterested and so we have a lack of participation as shown in the SU elections.

Raphael

Actually people aren't involved because they don't really give a shit.

Back in the 70s and 80s, it fought tooth and nail for student rights, for the increase of facilities, etc. These were in the days where Student unions helped to secure free university eduction, or in more simple local terms, where they squatted in a room in the arts block with some pool tables and the trap was born. When Ents was the primary organiser of on campus social events, when the union facilitated the setting up of the LGBT soc when the university refused to fund it.

In recent years, a lot of what it fought for is achieved, and student rights were pretty good. So sabbat officers began to get elected on the grounds of promises of services provided, which got steadily more unreasonable (at least in my time [06-present]). Also, big socs became party socs, which severely limited the impact of Ents, which was traditionally the most noticeable part of the SU. And so people stopped caring.

Nowadays, the only reason the SU exists is so the university has access to a representative student body, allowing them to have things be approved by the student body by getting the SU president to look at it. As a service provider, they do a fair bit, but nothing that couldn't be spun off. As an event organiser, they're completely eclipsed by the big socs. And as a political body, they haven't been relevant for any year I've been a UCD student.

Fad

UCDCritic wrote: »

The only reason people take part in the SU is for resources.

The are not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, they are self motivated for what's in it for them.

Such resources include:
Status
Power
Perks (free stuff)
Inner circle information (why the SU is in so much debt (the truth))

These people invest their time and effort so they will not want to share the fruits of their labour for free, by keeping others out it means more for themselves.

To backup my claim I offer the example of the complete lack of interest students have in SU Elections. For the last two years there has been only one candidate out of twenty thousand plus students running for SU president.

You would only status amongst other hacks. For the most part, people seriously involved in the SU are looked down upon, especially the later on in your degree you get.
The SU have almost no power.
The free stuff you can get through the SU is the same free stuff you can get through being involved in anything else (aside from maybe a ucd ball ticket, that'd be hard to get out of being PRO for scifi), getting into nightclubs for free and the odd slice of pizza isnt really worth the amount of time you'd have to put in.
The truth is far less exciting than it sounds.

On the election thing, last year no one was going to win against Rachel. President was contested this year.

People get involved in things for different reasons, some people want to climb the ladder, some people just want to get involved in Welfare and help people.

[Jackass]

Actually the number one reason people get invloved imo is that it looks good on their CV.

Best of luck to them, I couldn't give two sh*ts and have absolutely no interest in getting involved, but if someone else does and has a good social life out of it and meets new people, has something good on their CV etc, then good for them.

Anybody can get involved if they want, just not many people care, but why begrudge those who do?

Class reps sometimes do useful things (there's very little opportunity for a student union rep to do anything of meaining these days imo), but my class rep has pressured lecturers into being fairer on certain issues, like example papers or revision lecturers. I think our rep is quite good, and if asked about him by someone I'd say yeah, he did a good job and best of luck to him.

Cody Pomeray

UCDCritic wrote: »

The only reason people take part in the SU is for resources.

The are not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, they are self motivated for what's in it for them.

I'm not sure how fatal their motivations might be to the value of the work they perform.

Selflessness is not a necessary requirement for an act or deed to hold merit. Our interests collide in the SU's competent execution of the tasks assigned to them.

dajaffa

People get involved for lots of reasons, yeah some people do want power and free stuff, a line on their cv, but plenty do it for good reasons like helping students, wanting to help their class get to know each other etc.

To give one example most welfare officers will have very difficult casework to deal with and in my experience it can take a great personal toll on them. Some go on to be social workers etc so it's a good experience for them to have, but plenty do it with no intention of following a career path where it could benefit them. Imo it's far too tough to do if you weren't doing it for the right reasons.

I could go on, but I think it's a pretty unfair generalisation to make.