Becoming an integral part of a new group, team, or community is one of the many struggles of being a "newbie" in those institutions. In Mae's first few weeks of her career at The Circle, she is instantly surrounded by thousands of new people, enumerable opportunities and events, and all this new information is available at the touch of her fingertips. Much in the same way, an incoming first-year Penn Stater is hit full-frontal with 43,000 students, global-standard education, and more activities, clubs, and responsibilities than one person can handle. These institutions are more similar than at first glance-- not just a leading technology company and a world-class university, different as night and day. As Mae transitions into her new life as a Circler, a Penn State freshman such as myself can notice similarities between the two institutions, between values, mantras, and practices.
At The Circle, Mae is debriefed on one of the companies main values: "Community First" (Eggers 47). Dan, her Customer Experience supervisor, advised that community is "just as important as the work we do here... we want to make sure that you can be a human being here too" (Eggers 47). It becomes very clear to Mae just how important being a community is to Circlers. Within her first week at the company, she is pranked by her best friend Annie and invited to a campus-wide tiki party. Each new person she meets is overtly polite and friendly, seemingly eager to get to know her and her involvement with The Circler community thus far.
Almost identical to The Circle, Penn State holds a set of six values, community being perhaps one of the most prevalent in everyday life in Happy Valley. During the application process, while attending NSO, during move-in and the activities organized for first-year students, these values are pushed and reinforced in every possible outlet and medium. Just during orientation, these values, with an emphasis on Penn State's thriving community, were included in at least three presentations, presentations that every Penn State freshman was required to attend. These values are even posted on the University website for any prospect students or curious inquirers to read: "We work together for the betterment of our University, the communities we serve, and the world" (Penn State). These efforts to instill the six values seem to be paying off, however, as many sources cite the Penn State Alumni Network as the largest dues-paying network in the world, creating an easily accessible community of Penn Staters all across the globe.
Both institutions share methods of "fostering community," though the mediums of these methods differ where The Circle obviously uses its state of the art, cutting edge social medias and technologies (Eggers 47). Like The Circle, Penn State hosts events to bring the community together: athletic games, club meetings discussing any and all topics, study groups, philanthropy, you name it, we have it. And, naturally, both institutions share the same, most common, most highly loved (though perhaps least classy) method of gathering the community: parties. Parties are a classic way to bring together a community, and I'm not strictly talking the kind you don't tell your parents about. Mae attends her first party at The Circle and meets Francis, and is in turn exposed to the rest of the Circler community. It's easy to deduce: you want to meet new people, there's hundreds of people at this party, you should go to the party if you want to meet new people.
Community is a value that is strived for in large institutions to create a sense of belonging and family.
Community is a value that is strived for in large institutions to create a sense of belonging and family.
Sources used in this post:
Eggers, Dave. The Circle: A Novel. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.
"Penn State Values." PSU Finance & Business |. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Sept. 2016.
Your post is a lot like mine! I thought the parties were very important as well. I would have liked if you had pointed out more differences, however and concluded with a more comprehensive wrap-up paragraph. Also in the first paragraph, you want to use 'innumerable,' not enumerable. Enumerable means able to be counted, which was probably not what you meant.
ReplyDeleteWe discussed a couple of the same aspects. I enjoyed reading this and gaining a sense of the same understanding. The discussion of parties was a great addition.
ReplyDelete