Senior year is the year of lasts. Students will soon be graduating and moving onto their new lives. Some students stay close to home, while others travel thousands of miles away. During senior year, friends try to spend as much time as they can together while they still see each other every day.

The senior retreat is designed as a way to bring the students of the senior class together and create new friendships before graduation. One way that the staff is pushing us to interact with unfamiliar people within our class is through placing us in cabins with random students, instead of letting us pick who we would prefer to be in a group with.

A positive of students not being able to pick who they are bunking with is shown again through the goal of creating friendships throughout the senior class. When people are grouped together without being able to cling to their best friends, it is assumed that one would attempt to build new relationships in order to feel included.

The need to feel included comes from a natural human trait that one needs to feel accepted and included in order to be satisfied with the situation. Acceptance, affirmation, and attention are necessary for one to know that they matter. One would think that in a situation such as groups at the senior retreat that because no one knows who they will be paired with, people will be open and friendly to those who do not have friends in their group. But the reality is that some students will be fortunate enough to be placed with two or three of their friends and then cling to them, leaving the students who don’t know anyone alone.

If it were up to me, students would be able to submit a form with a few names on it of people that they would like to be placed in a cabin or day group with, and then the groups are arranged with at least one person that everyone requested. How do people feel when they aren’t very outgoing and placed in a group with no one they know? It takes the fun out of the activities and the weekend.

I think not being able to have a voice in who students spend their weekend with at the senior retreat can be a negative experience for some people. I understand that the administration is trying to join us together and make new friends, but in reality, is that really as easy as it seems?