There are several group norms at SJSU ranging from social to academic. For instance, specific groups like sororities and fraternities have certain norms such as crucial norms that involve attending weekly meetings and completing a certain amount of community service hours with their brothers and sisters. These groups can also have peripheral norms such as having good manners and behaving respectfully during public events. Aside from these types of verbal norms, groups can also have explicit norms which are part of the policies of the group sanctioned procedures. Such norms can include having a specific dress code during events, attendance requirements for rush events or meeting certain deadlines.
Other group norms at SJSU include the academic integrity rules for every SJSU student. For this specific group, every member (students) is required to be honest in all their academic course work. Aside from students being expected to show their academic integrity, faculty members are required to report all infractions where students are caught cheating and/or plagiarizing. These are explicit norms which are almost always found the course syllabus in every class.
With the group of individuals I spend time with the norms are pretty common and straight forward. In the classroom, one norm is raise your hand when you want to speak. Although it is not specifically written or verbally outlined, most students have the common respect to not interrupt another student or instructor while someone else is speaking. Another peripheral norm is the seating arrangements. Although most classroom settings don't have assigned seating in college, most students usually try to sit in the same area for the duration of the semester. Of course there are always those days when you walk into class to find someone sitting in “your” seat which is extremely annoying :)
One way that I identified these norms is just being being a student for so long. As a child, one gets used to how the classroom works and they are continuously learning how to behave. For example, in kindergarten you learn the “golden rules”such as treat people the way you want to be treated, sharing, play fair, etc. As time goes on, you learn how to act and react to certain situations. Adapting to these norms is fairly simple. The way I learn to adapt to new situations is by watching others. For example, being a new student to SJSU I didn't know where anything on campus was. One day I needed to use a computer so I was walking around in Clark Hall and I saw a bunch of computers being used by students. Being that I was new and didn't know the process of how to get access, I just observed some students as they checked in with the front desk and after watching for a few minutes, I
built up the courage to ask if I could sign up to use a computer.
(p.s. here's a link to the "golden rules" I found to be interesting. http://www.peace.ca/kindergarten.htm )
Hi jprado,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post! I completley agree with you that there are group norms present at SJSU. I agree with you that as a student the acedemic integrity rules we have to abide by count as group norms. These rules are not only written for us as peripheral norms or explicit norms, but are just obvious ways that a person should act on a daily basis. I have also found that after being a student for so many years that these norms are basically the same for every year and transfered to the different schools I have attended. Each student at SJSU is apart of a group and we each have the same expectations set on us that we have to abide by, if we dont then we face consequences. Your post was very well written and I liked all of the detail and thought you put into it. Talk to you soon.
-Jessica
(jstoltz89)
I really enjoyed reading your post! You make several good points in regards to the norms at SJSU. Aside from the norms of being a student, there are also the norms of other social student groups (like you said) such as fraternities, sororities and even other social groups and/or clubs on campus. Belonging to different social groups means you are being expected to conform (and also expecting of others) to conform to different standards. I also like how you mentioned that belonging to different groups can sometimes include different dress codes. For example, a teacher is expected to show up to class dressed somewhat professionally. Although it does not always happen, the norm is for a professor to appear more educated or professional than the student. Just as one is expected to show up to work well groomed and dress professionally, or an athlete is expected to show up to practice or a game with the proper outfit.
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