By: Jojackson Igietseme
As part of the “Freshman Experience” Vanderbilt created the Move-In Crew, which helps incoming freshman move into their new rooms. Upon reaching The Commons, freshman and their parents are treated to upperclassman dressed in blue shirts and khakis, eerily reminiscent to Best Buy employees, taking their stuff and moving it up to their rooms, hence the title Move-In Crew. The system is rather efficient though. You drive through the maze like parking lot Vanderbilt has set up, listen to the Move-In Crew shout to to you about how “happy” they are to have you at Vanderbilt. Before you can even tell the Move-In people what they need to take, they’re already carting off your secret stash of alcohol and drugs. Exacerbating the situation is the fact that the elevators can’t be used, so moving in is actually made harder due to the traffic in the stairways. After dropping your stuff off in a pile right in front of the door, the Move-In crew leaves you and your parents to push through the pile of shit, you now regret bringing, and get to your equally depressing room. In theory, this seems like a good idea…until you realize that this doesn’t happen after Move-In day. Once freshman leave the commons, they’ll be forced to move their stuff into their own rooms and unfortunately, if they get Kissam, no elevators to lighten the load. Even more unfortunate is that you now have to move all of your stuff out of the dorms come end of the semester. Like crack, Vanderbilt brings you in nice and then drops you…hard.
It also doesn’t help that 1500 other freshman are also doing this exact same thing, which brings up a plethora of other questions like: How does Vanderbilt manage to get enough upperclassman to man this project? Are upperclassmen just so excited to help freshman move in? Can I add Move-In times to my Commodore Card like Flex meals? Who’s responsible if my stuff breaks? Who’s responsible if my Move-In crew person breaks? All attempts to get in contact with the Office of Housing and Residential Education, to get my questions answered, have been met with failure. Despite the scrutiny the Move-In crew faces from the writer’s at the Slant, the Move-In crew continues to serve the Vanderbilt Community wholeheartedly…unlike YES.
Move-In Crew
Mosaic: Almost as Colorful as its Lies
Walking from the Pub Thursday afternoon after watching a disappointing loss our basketball team faced due to Murray State, I happened upon what I believed to be a “stranger” looking lost. Normally, being the good samaritan that I am, I would have stopped and gladly given some help, but as I got closer and closer to this person, I noticed this kid had no visible Vanderbilt ID. So I did the most appropriate thing I could think of…make awkward eye contact, turn my head to the side, pull out my cellphone and pretend to be so enraptured in a conversation that I couldn’t possibly take time out of my meaningless conversation to help this poor kid. Feeling bad, I took one more look at the kid and noticed he had a name tag emblazoned with his hometown, name and the words “MOSAIC 2010.” Looking around, I noticed there were a lot more kids, with similar name tags, just standing around that I didn’t recognize. Remembering MOSAIC as the program I didn’t get invited to, when I was admitted into Vanderbilt, I purposely shoulder bumped the kid while shouting “Welcome to Vanderbilt Jackass.” Laughing to myself as I walked away I noticed a VUPD officer quickly approaching the student. Not wanting to cause trouble, I hastened to the SLC where I had heard the MOSAIC events would start. As I got to the ballroom, I noticed a lot of Vanderbilt students picking up the MOSAIC kids and leaving. Thinking these Vanderbilt students were going to show these kids a good time, I was confused that they were headed in the direction opposite of Frat Row. Confused at this point, I decided that maybe they were waiting until the weekend to introduce these kids to the wilder side of Vanderbilt. I was once again disappointed when I showed up at Frat Row and the usual suspects were all in attendance. As I lay in my bed Saturday night, whilst neglecting to do the reading assigned for my class the next Monday, I decided that I need to get on the Internet and find out what exactly this MOSAIC weekend really entailed.
After exploring Facebook for two hours and looking through party pictures of MOSAIC events I wasn’t invited to, I finally summoned the will to close that browser and do a google search. My search led me to the Office of Student Admissions. Quoted directly from the MOSAIC page, they say, “The purpose of MOSAIC is to give prospective students a unique introduction to a campus constantly striving for increased diversity and awareness. As a result, we are asking that you help the prospective students visualize themselves as future Commodores while at the same time, giving them an accurate glimpse of life at Vanderbilt.” Confused and conflicted, I wondered how these kids would get an accurate perspective of Vanderbilt without standing in line at Rand when it’s 12:00pm, going to Frat Row 3 nights in a row before realizing it’s all the same, standing in line at the post office for 15 minutes before giving up and trying again tomorrow and having to ride the Vandy Van all around campus just to get from Kissam to Branscomb. How could these students possibly understand the struggles we Vanderbilt kids face on a day to day basis by following an itinerary set up by people who don’t know anything about student life at Vanderbilt? The answer, I realized, lay beyond my limited scope of knowledge. Getting out of my room, I decided to head to the Commons Munchie Mart, looking forward to the meal I was about to use. After getting my entree and two sides, I turned to stand in line and was shocked at how long it stretched. Walking dejectedly to the back, I glared at all the MOSAIC kids who swarmed in all the while thinking, “Fuck MOSAIC.”
So Far Gone is How I’ll be at Rites of Spring
The Rites of Spring line up has been announced: Ben Harper and the Relentless7, Melanie Fiona, Doug E. Fresh, Passion Pit, Cold War Kids, and Drake. Wait! Drake…as in Drake Bell from Drake and Josh or Francis Drake, the swashbuckling pirate of the seven seas. If you were thinking any of the above, you were wrong. The Drake performing at Rites of Spring is none other than Aubrey Drake Graham; better known as Drizzy Drake by overzealous fans, Drake by the tabloids and Jimmy Brooks the wheelchair kid from the hit Canadian show. The writers at The Slant have a slew of nicknames we’d prefer to call him, but we feel that “That rapper who got one more Grammy nomination than Soulja Boy Tell’em” would only serve to switch Mr. Tell’em’s attention from his “successful” rap career to our measly newspaper. Despite this, The Slant believes that the Vanderbilt community deserves to know who exactly this seemingly talented entertainer is.
Born and raised in Toronto, Canada, similar to where every other rapper began their successful careers, Drake’s boyish charm and bass deficient voice scored him the role as Jimmy Brooks on the Canadian high school drama Degrassi. In the show, Brooks is a basketball star who became physically disabled after he was shot in the back by a classmate. Possibly seeing the end to his stint on television, Drake released his first mixtape on Myspace prompting me to wonder how one decides to go from Canadian television star to Myspace mixtape releaser, but because this was a Myspace release, the jump couldn’t have been but so far. Drake’s role on the show ended in 2009, when his character finally graduated from Degrassi High…at the age of 23; proving that Canadian television producers couldn’t get over the fact that real Canadian schools allow people to stay in high school until the age of 24. This did a lot for Drake, considering the majority of kids on Myspace were probably in high school during this time.
Regardless, Drake skyrocketed to success off of his many mixtapes, none of which can be downloaded while on campus, which leads me to believe that there are many of us on campus who still have a Myspace account. Nonetheless, the positive reviews Drake received led him to be signed with Lil Wayne’s recording label, “Young Money.” This ragtag group of rappers consists of a slew of colorfully named characters like Nicki Minaj, Gudda Gudda, Tyga, Lil’ Twist, Mack Maine and Lil Chuck. Luckily Drake was spared a ridiculous nickname that seems so characteristic of this group.
Despite his lackluster early career, unimpressive upbringings and lack of a studio album, Drake surprisingly puts out good music. His use of metaphors and punchlines combined with his clever usage of words, Lil Way…I mean Drake is an unusually talented rapper. His influence spreads from Facebook statuses, to Twitter posts and pretty soon, according to Drake, he’ll be “All up in yo slot til a —– hit the jackpot.” Of course this article doesn’t really do much to help since only about 8% of this entire campus really knows who he is or cares.
