Putting on a show for family weekend

Sometimes at Hopkins, things are happening so fast that you barely have a moment to take a breath. But Parents' Weekend, which took place last week, provides students with the opportunity to reunite with the folks and get taken out to a fancy dinner.

Every year, parents descend on Homewood like a herd of lost camels, eating at Terrace, browsing the stacks, and maybe even crashing your neighbor's party.

You may get the feeling your parents will always say the wrong thing in front of your friends, but usually it feels good to see the folks who are paying for your four-year intellectual travels.

A luxurious night out at a hot-spot restaurant is a must for any successful parents' weekend. There is no better feeling in the world than sitting down to a meal where you actually have a menu and people serve you whatever you want.

The weekend was packed with events that parents and students alike could enjoy, like a show by the "Capitol Steps" comedy troupe on friday and a Barnstormers show on saturday, not to mention parent workshops on saturday morning and various religious meetings. Younger siblings could even go on admissions tours.

But for all this nonchalance, there is quite a bit of effort squeezed in on a superficial level. The land scaping gets a little bit spruced up, the food in the dining hall magically improves and apparently, there is someone in charge of strategically placing fall gourds around campus in an effort to make it look all homey. All this occurs just before parents descend upon the dorms and academic buildings with their white gloves and clipboards.

In one of my classes, the professor even scheduled a party for the class because she thought it was important for us to "get to know each other." The fact that this didn't occur to her until well past the midpoint of the semester on a class day when the students' attendance was rivaled by that of their parents makes it easy to fall prey to the conspiracy theory that Family Weekend is all a clever setup designed so that parents will drive away happy and satisfied, the University will have their mandate to keep on truckin' on, and we students will continue to study away with those frustrating words, "See? It's not so bad!" ringing in our heads.

Happily, there's a less cynical way to look at it. Family Weekend is more about the students than the families. For most undergraduates, it is marked by free, decent meals at actual restaurants and much needed rides to the grocery store or shopping mall. As sophomore Alexandra Sowa puts it, "Family Weekend should be synonymous with shoe shopping."

Not to mention that for all its hectic-ness, Family Weekend actually adds to the total undergraduate-happiness-quotient. It is a well-known fact that having one's parents hang around for an entire weekend can drive that person crazy. But once the parents pack up the minivan and go home, the sky is brighter, the birds chirp a little louder and learning actually seems fun! (Okay, everything except that last one.) By using reverse psychology, Family Weekend drives undergraduates to embrace their independence with renewed vigor.

"I think it's great because just when you start to miss home and miss having people doing your laundry, they come to visit," said senior Casey Weinberg. "But then you can't wait for them to leave you alone again. Family Weekend really makes you appreciate college life more."

For all these benefits they should really call it "Student Weekend." One undergraduate who went home to visit her parents instead of having them visit Hopkins. Sophomore Kyra Appleby flew all the way home to Connecticut for a whirlwind weekend at home. She reasoned, "It was family visit weekend so I went home and visited my family."

Fair enough. After all, if you're not going to go to "Activities A to Z: How Do Students Get Involved?" you may as well enjoy a home cooked meal and your own cozy bed.