Some thoughts on Scav

Most teachers know nothing about Scav. If they do, they are often against it. Many students, even, have only vague understandings of it. Though large, Scav involves only a small fraction of the students on campus.

Yet, I think Scav is the epitome of the U of C. It is, at least, the school's nature distilled into an eau de vie. And in that essence is contained the contradictions of this place: it is the biggest engineering project at a school without engineering. The people who miss class to participate are often the most studious people. It is a huge social event, which includes a large and alcohol-blurred party, yet most people who do it are, or at least were in high school, not terribly social people and certainly not huge partiers. It is the purest form of concrete - relying on tangible objects - at a school that prides itself on its focus on the theoretical - we sell shirts that say "That's fine in practice, but how does it work in theory?".

Scav is not just for nerds, though, far from it. First of all, whatever my reputation in high school, I hardly count as a nerd at U of C. Second, many people participate only for the party, which has a theme that requires extensive construction of costumes. Some people only do ScavOlympics, items that are vaguely athletic (although often they are not - one item was to eat an entire crave case of White Castle sliders). Some only do a few items, others sleep in the war room. Some help out by sewing things and putting makeup on people as part of costumes. Others spend the whole four days with a power tool in their hands (note that the latter are almost as likely to be females, and the former almost as likely to be males). Some just want an excuse to drive halfway across the country and back in three days. Others just want to stay in one room, fiddling.

After reading Wilfred Owen, I am hesitant mix war metaphors with ideas about camaraderie and honor. But I feel that the entrenchment that comes from Scav really does force people to work together and learn about each other. People, often people who are not involved at all, will bring extra food back from the dining hall in order to help feed the Scavvies. People meet others from different years and different dorms (occasionally - some people from dorms that have weak teams will join other teams to get a chance to compete). Rivalries are forgotten, friendships forged, sacrifices made for one's brethren. All in the name of Scav.

Of course, many places have their own testaments to uselessness. People run around naked, or have zany contests that require building robots that play soccer, or stuff like that. One could argue that the most ubiquitous celebration of uselessness is Spring Break, with its boobs and its sun and its drinking. Certainly nothing useful there. And I am not arguing, not yet at least, that Scav is superior to any of those other methods of dealing with this absurdly pragmatic, grounded, finite society. But it is the method that best fits the U of C. It is academic as well as anti-academic, full of knowledge and exploration. Every item is an experiment, an essay in the original meaning of "a try" or "a go" as in "give it a go". It is quite possible that the things I learned during Scav, as a team member and as a captain, will be more valuable to me than anything I learned in my economics classes. Certainly as a captain I learned more about how to lead a team (or, in my case, how NOT to lead a team, but that knowledge is just as valuable) and how to create a budget and raise money and set and keep deadlines than in any of my individual classes.

So maybe we should just have Scav instead of class.