Last Thursday, I went to a seminar on bystander intervention. While I appreciate Dr. Anne Laurita coming to speak with us, I honestly didn’t feel like I got much out of the event. I think that part of this stems from a having a tough time relating to the scenarios shown in the film Intervene. Amidst the dangerous drinking, hazing, sexual harassment, and other problematic situations, the only one I felt connected to was the part regarding academic problems; I’ve been both the bystander and the person who needed help on different occasions. I’m aware that all of the other situations are seen around campus, some more frequently than others, but having never gone through myself, I felt very detached. I understand that the point of the seminar was to show ways of intervening (although we did discuss the positives and negatives of intervention, which I thought was interesting), but I feel that I would never be in a position where I would even be a bystander able to get involved. For instance, I don’t go partying or drinking, and neither do any of my friends on campus, so I have a hard time seeing myself as a bystander at a party who needs to intervene in an emergency, simply because I wouldn’t be at that party in the first place. I felt very disconnected, and so had a hard time being inspired to act.

While I didn’t feel like the seminar was very useful for me, I hope that everyone else who had come found it to be enlightening, informative, or otherwise positive in some way.