Symposium Days at Augustana take place once per semester to offer diverse opportunities for students to learn outside of the classroom. In the fall, the focus is on the Augie Reads topic for the year, a requirement for all first-year students. In the spring, Celebration of Learning relates to student or faculty-led research projects as well as SI presentations.

In reality, both of these days seem like a waste of time.

To be clear, I think there is potential for Symposium Day to be a great resource for students. However, when only certain professors require students to attend, leaving plenty of others with a day off, they do not seem worth going to.

Emily Martin, a junior majoring in Environmental Science and Geology, agrees that Symposium Day can be good to attend, but would prefer to just relax if there is nothing of interest for her to learn about.

“I do like to participate in Symposium Day,” Martin said. “But it takes a little bit of encouragement to do it because obviously it is a day without classes, so it’s a little bit harder to motivate myself to go do something else other than getting caught up on work.”

I was required to attend two sessions during this Symposium Day in lieu of one class, which required me to sit through 120 minutes of presentations rather than a normal 75 minute class period. The occasion is essentially an excuse for classes to give more assigned work instead of giving agency to their students to choose speakers that they are personally interested in. Writing a brief report or reflection on what I observed is not as valuable when it’s merely for a grade. 

The theme of Fall Symposium 2022 was Civil Discourse, which to me, did not relate to the two sessions I went to. As a first-year, I had to go to Symposium Day for class. I don’t know what the theme was or what sessions I attended. I only remember what I attended in the spring because it was related to my major. 

This seems to be what Kaitlyn Yee, a sophomore Spanish and International Business major, thinks Symposium Day should focus on. When asked her thoughts on this bi-annual Augustana tradition, Yee said that she really does not see the point of it, only enjoying the day to sleep in and work on homework.

“If it’s part of your class that’s a different story, but when you are forced to go to some random thing, it’s just there to ‘broaden your horizons,’ but it doesn’t really do that,” Yee said.

Having the options available for students to go to by choice is important, but realistically no one should be forced to attend if they do not wish to.

“The best general thing [that would motivate me to attend on my own] would be something that is pretty specific, but like a big deal, within my major,” added Yee.

I find the two best events that I have attended thus far have been involving things of my personal interest: French SI presentations and a session about the Gray Matters initiative. Anything I have gone to outside of these is lost from my memory which seems to defeat the purpose of Symposium Day.

Fall Symposium Day occurs very close to midterms and fall break. The one day given to students for fall break is sad considering how Augustana gives few days off during the rest of the semester.

Maybe providing Augustana students with more days off not filled with required events, or a longer fall break, would be a better use of everyone’s time.