Freshmen, this is a warning. Many of you have anticipated joining clubs all summer, eager to get involved in extracurriculars and immerse yourselves in the Tufts community. Well, hopefully, these horror stories will make you reconsider your zeal.
Jefra — a sweet, wide-eyed girl from Virginia — found herself at the club fair ready to face the world. Where Jefra saw an opportunity for casual fun, the deceitful, vulture-like leaders of Model UN spotted fresh meat. Jefra was told the club would take up at most an hour per week – “low commitment” they had told young Jefra. Wrong. Model UN grew to consume her whole life. Like every other MUN member, the club became all Jefra talked about, driving away her friends and family. She was going down a path her Pre-O friends could not follow. Her dreams of being a doctor now came second to researching obscure facts about Botswana. Her priority was winning a hotly contested e-board seat, not passing BIO-13. Since Model UN does not even accurately reflect the world’s geopolitical landscape, Jefra went into the workforce with no hard or soft skills. Hello welfare!
This “club brain drain” is not exclusive to Model UN. Jake, an outgoing freshman and aspiring International Relations major, abandoned his passion for policy after joining the Cheese Club. No longer was Jake advocating for human rights. Rather, he advocated for more mozzarella in the dining halls. He used to study the persecution of the Kurds in Turkey, but now Jake only studies curds of the cheese variety.
When Tufts organizations sink their venomous claws into impressionable freshmen, they influence students to overcommit their time and prioritize the group over themselves. By the time students realize that their precious clubs are exploiting them, they already feel emotionally attached to the organizations and it is far too late.
If you are feeling overwhelmed by a Tufts club, do not report it to your club leaders or even your therapist. All therapists in the Medford-Somerville area are in the pockets of Tufts clubs. The TCU funds these mental health professionals to manipulate wavering club members on a psychological level, similar to how the Church of Scientology forces disaffected members into audits to purge their negative engrams. Ears 4 Peers is not to be trusted either. The “confidential” organization earned their name after cutting off the ears of whistleblowers who dared to speak out against them.
I already hear your mocking, skeptical chuckles. Well, that won’t happen to me. I promise you, dear naive freshman, it will. Something as innocuous as Torn Ticket has resulted in poor theater kids being torn in half. Do you want to be torn in half? Well, then join my very own anti-club club (ACC), dedicated to purging the world of malevolent, parasitic Tufts organizations. It is a low-commitment club and meets only once a week. However, if you’re on e-board, the ACC is, indeed, a 24/7 commitment. These clubs are not going to fight themselves! Our message is simple: the next time Mike from Ultimate Frisbee or Bayleigh from TMC asks you to come to their club’s weekly meetings, just say NO.
P.S. The Zamboni meets twice a week. Please come!
