I just got an email from one of my three current institutions (hint: it’s the one that is conducted entirely online because no one wants to move that far north of Edmonton for any reason, let alone grad school) inviting my classmates and I to partake in some Second Life socializing. Quoth the program director:
One of the challenges of online graduate study is the lack of opportunity to interact informally with fellow students and faculty.
On one hand, it’s awesome that they’re doing this. Good on them for trying something new in their delivery methods. And they’re right: distance ed is a little lonely. Message boards only take you so far in your social interactions. Email is cumbersome when you’re working on a group presentation. Second Life might not be able to replace the one-liners, chatter and get-on-the-same-pagedness (see how much better that phrase is than ’synergy’?) of face-to-face interaction, but at least you can show up and see how many people wish they had green mohawks and full-body tattoos.
On the other hand, the topic of discussion for this informal interaction is as follows:
Please join me… to discuss how we can use Second Life for peer-to-peer and student-faculty networking and socializing.
In other words, they’re hoping people will meet up in Second Life to discuss meeting up in Second Life. That’s like having a networking event where the theme of the evening is, um, networking. Maybe with a speaker on networking who gives tips. And everyone then having to mill around using those tips at each other in a mutually excruciating exchange of awkwardness.
We definitely did one of those during orientation at Dalhousie. The entire incoming student population of the Faculty of Management was there: MBAs, MPAs, Environmental Resources, Marine Management, and the library kids. We all got little cards with networking tips on the back. Mine was, “It’s your responsibility to fit in.” Which I guess I can’t really argue with, as hilariously offensive as it was at the time. The only other option is to nurse a handful of carrot sticks in the corner and sulk, right?
However, the difference between the well-coiffed, stiletto’d, be-suited MBA students and the library kids in our cardigans and cat-eyes and odd hoodie was a little stark, and I have to admit that I stuck pretty close to the librarian/hippie side of the divide rather than making the leap to foreign shores of public/business administration. It was my third day in Halifax, after all, and I was overwhelmed and predictably starving at 6pm with naught but a handful of party-plate appetizers and a speech from the Dean (on networking!) to sustain me.
Which is I guess why this Second Life gig makes a lot of sense. It’s a lot more fun to take responsibility for fitting in when everyone’s wearing purple hair, bat wings and porkpie hats.
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