September 9, 2024: Scavenger Hunt
by Jose Meza-Pantoja
I waited for the SPARK class to begin. It was the third week of the fall semester, and yet it was our first time meeting together for a class. I got there several minutes early and took a seat. There weren’t many people there with me, just one or two waiting in their seat like I was. The room was filled with silence and the time seemed to drag. Like all classrooms in the Admin building, the room was very plain, colored by varying shades between black and white. The colors just seemed to slow down time even more.
Then the door opened, and it felt like a switch was turned on. People began arriving in pairs and groups. The dull lifeless colors of the room were now being overpowered by something brighter and stronger. It was green. Our first class activity was a scavenger hunt, where students would find different locations around the UC Merced campus while wearing their Carson House t-shirts, which were a bright green color. Now there were 20 bright green T-shirts talking and moving around the room, filling the room with energy.
The silence washed away and was replaced by noise. The noise came from people moving around the room and, surprisingly, talking! As a 3rd year UC Merced student, I’ve never been in a class with that sort of atmosphere; everybody was eager to talk with one another and didn’t hesitate to begin. The prevalence of smartphones has caused a culture in which students are very hesitant to strike up conversations. It is so much easier to be distracted and pass the time on your phone than to put the effort into starting and maintaining a conversation. This did not seem to be a problem for the Carson House students. Prior to our first class, LLC-exclusive events were hosted to allow students to connect with one another and now I was seeing these connections being brought over to the classroom.
