Social Gap between seniors and juniors in university

It is very assuring that everyone; the youth, working people, adults etc has experienced how schooling is like and so, we can jump to another assumption, everyone has experienced how university’s life feels like. It is a life full of havoc things, interesting peers, busy assignments, the epoch when we all have the chance to try things that raise our curiosity level up high like the Petronas Tower. Despite these hullaballoo, there are equally amount of depressing sensations in the young adults’ life. Studying in university is not much better than when we were still under our parents care. Also, it is not the same like when we were in clicks during our middle school. Social structure in university, any university and colleges in fact, serves different experience and practice in order for students to survive in the institutional structures. There are two major groups which we can obviously portray in the university’s institution; the juniors and the seniors. These two groups have always been intertwining with each other, without the seniors, there will be no juniors, and vice versa. Unfortunately, there has always been a gap between these two groups, which we can say comes from the factors of maturity level, in identical of notions and also seniority ego. These factors may affect the social structure in terms of less integrity in activities conducted and also weak organization structure.

One clear difference that we could evidently discover between the seniors and juniors is the age difference. While it has been shown that older persons are generally more mature, psychological maturity is not determined by one's age (Wikipedia, 2011). While people believe that juniors cannot make a mature decision compare to seniors, the university environment already marks labels to these groups of people. Others will always regard the seniors as the “wise ones” and the juniors as the “lambs” or the docile ones. Since seniors come to university earlier than the juniors, they are considered as more knowledgeable or familiar with the university’s protocols, rules and regulations. The juniors, still in the process of adapting themselves with the new university’s surrounding and environment frequently choose to stay silent and let the professionals lead.

Things eventually develop when the juniors progress and become the seniors; they sooner or later become familiar with the university’s life thus the life role as juniors and seniors in university continues in circle.

Since there is an age gap between seniors and juniors, of course they also have in identical notions. Even when we are among our own group, each and every one of us has our own opinion and thoughts, try to consider when we are in a larger institution. It is hard to communicate when others do not understand or do not have the same doctrine as we have. That is what happens between seniors and juniors in university.

In my observation, from what I saw in my own faculty, there is a large gap between the seniors and juniors mainly because they have different opinions on how to handle and organize activities and classes. The juniors are more manic and chatty while the seniors act professionally and very calm. I often heard talks like “The juniors are very noisy, they act like monkeys in the faculty. That is so inappropriate for them to act so” or “The seniors all look so gloomy and serious. They are no fun”. This discussions among one another actually bring the idea that the seniors and juniors are forming clicks, not considering they are from which batches, still bring conflicts and misconceptions not only among them but also the staff and lecturer.

Another factor affecting the gap between the seniors and juniors is the seniority ego that is experienced by some of the seniors in the same department. People who are fresh to seniority are often anxious with the title, and thus results to escalating ego. Some are fine with the title senior but others never get over it and they tend to show off their authority to juniors. Their ego may result from their desire to show and convey the new comer (juniors) that they should respect the seniors. Sometimes their ego goes to the extent of “keeping” their favourite lecturer, conducting activities that involve only the seniors’ click and rule/demand (bully, I can say) around the juniors to participate in their activity. For example, an activity conducted by the seniors requires compulsory participation from the juniors but not the seniors to attend. This bias treatment often makes consequence with dissatisfaction among the juniors.

We can guarantee that most people dislike being treated faultily just in order to give other people respect and reverence. So, most juniors keep a distance from the seniors to avoid any misunderstandings and conflicts

The social structure in the education institution might collapse if these two communities do not work together. Both seniors and juniors are depended on one another, whether t is done consciously or unconsciously. When these two groups do not work together, in terms of university’s life, the effects include less integrity in activities conducted and not to forget, a weak organization structure.

We need the students to participate when an activity is done. Whether the activity is done in the faculty level, the university level or international level, we need both parties to contribute; the seniors may lead because they have gained experiences in the previous activities while the juniors can learn from the seniors. Without one of these groups, an activity would not function or happen like what it is supposed to be.

It is typical for us, the university community to elect a leader that could lead us or as they say, “become our voice and to speak out our thoughts and opinions. All students; seniors and juniors are asked to vote their nominees, with the one who gets the most vote becomes the head of the students (MPP). Without the corporation among the students to vote or voice out their thoughts, the students’ organization structure becomes weak. To allow a weak organization to lead and care for the students is like living in a dilapidated house waiting for the time to collapse. Students’ community in university comprises both groups of students; seniors and juniors to work together, to make an affective and productive society.

Both parties relies on each other, thus support the functionalist theory, if one institution collapses, it will affect the others. It is important to keep both clusters at the same level, equalize the functions and make them work among each other, despite the gap. Gap between seniors and juniors is unavoidable but we can lessen the gap. One has to be sensitive when deals with two groups of totally different people, learn how to adjust with their situations to avoid misunderstandings. Act professionally in spite of different notions as that will practice us on how to deal a more variety of people when we deal with the world after our university’s life. There are still a lot more to learn, a lot more to practice and a lot more advices to apply in our own life and perspective to effectively with the world society.