I am writing in response to the article “DVC social scene fosters isolation, needs upgrade.”

In addition to the points you made in the piece, I would like to add another dimension to the discussion by providing some context, calling attention to a counter example and expanding your solution to include institutional changes.

When you labeled the lack of social interactions on campus as “DVC’s social problem,” I understood you were comparing our campus vibe to that of a four-year university. However, given the context of DVC as a community college, of course the social scene is bound to look different.

Unlike a four-year college, not everyone at DVC places pursuing school and making friends as their top priorities. DVC students do not live in dorms; they commute. DVC students don’t just dedicate all their time to school; most of them work to support themselves (and their families).

We have students from diverse backgrounds ranging from veterans to international students, students just out of high school and community members who are only taking a one-unit class. The very nature of a community college leads to a different social atmosphere on campus than that of a traditional four-year college. Therefore, it is unfitting to compare the social scene of a community college to that of a four-year university.

Also, I would like to include an important portion of DVC’s students in this discussion about this dull, isolated social life on campus: the portion of students who are actively involved on campus. While student activities might not be as vibrant and grand in scale as those of large universities, DVC offers some outstanding opportunities to get involved through clubs and student organizations.

Phi Beta Lambda won numerous awards during a statewide business leaders conference last semester, Model United Nations is hosting a home conference on campus about privatization of education and WE DVC hosted an art show for Women’s History Month. And these examples are only a small sample of all the activities on campus. As an active club member and an officer in student government, I was disappointed to read that you ignored students who are involved and generalized the 20,000 students at DVC as disengaged and divided.

Lastly, while part of the solution is to reach out to peers on a personal level, I think there needs to be some institutional changes if we want to revive campus culture. Having available meeting spaces on campus, unified student life activities and an effective campus-wide communication system are changes on an institutional level that can help bring more life to the campus atmosphere beyond our personal efforts.

I would like to emphasize that I am writing this in hopes of shining light to another side of the debate. Thank you for starting this discussion. I completely agree that there is major room for improvement; however, to say that all of DVC is disengaged and fragmented is to underplay some great opportunities already available on campus.

~Lily Yi

DVC Student