Students attend liberal arts colleges like Ball State University for many reasons. One stands true for most: the opportunity to gain new experiences and learn more about a wide range of topics.
By establishing clustered residence halls and isolating students within their intended majors, the university runs the risk of restricting students from this opportunity.
In a non-clustered residence hall, a myriad of students coming from various places and fields of study are living down the hall from one another.
In a clustered environment, students live with the people they're primarily in classes with. They aren't given the opportunity to grow, challenge their views or experience the diversity of a traditional college residence hall.
While clusters of business and pre-nursing majors will join the already established communications cluster Fall Semester, cliques could form and broadening horizons could prove to be more difficult.
These clusters might help make the transition to college smoother, but who said college should be easy?
By reducing students' opportunity to interact with those outside of their field of study, are we restricting their ability to grow and meet as many types of people as possible?
Students in these clusters aren't being thrown into the college experience. The initial impact of coming to college and being forced to interact with everyone is lessened when students are grouped by major. The culture shock of living with students from a multitude of majors is an integral part of the college experience.
Students in clustered living have to put forth their own effort into finding people who aren't studying the same subject as they are.
Not all college students have the time to search for those opportunities.
While clustering might have academic benefits, the creation of more clustered residence halls will have an adverse effect on the social benefits of living on campus.
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