Dear Editor,

My first response to reading the article about the Challenge
Course being a waste of money left me outraged, disappointed and offended.
After the initial emotional outburst wore off, I got to thinking. You know my
biggest complaint about UCSD? No one ever looks at you. While walking down Library Walk, no one makes
eye contact — cell phones are out, iPods are on and eyes are down.

How did our campus get to be so unsociable? Why is everyone
afraid of meeting each other and taking social risks? When was the last time
UCSD encouraged you to learn from the people next to you? When are you going to learn to rely on your
peers and trust your own abilities to overcome a real-life challenge? Where are
all these life lessons?

There is a simple answer: the Challenge Course. You want to
learn about confidence? Try climbing the 40-foot tower with nothing holding you
but a single rope. You want to learn to trust people? Try laying strapped into
a stretcher, being held up by 10 strangers — three of whom are blindfolded —
walking across a log. Want to learn about teamwork? Watch 12 people try to
travel between two platforms 10 feet apart without touching the ground. After a
day at the Challenge Course, you have no choice but to feel connected to the
people around you. Now try to tell me you get that same feeling from a parking
pass or a textbook exchange Web site.

When I look back and remember UCSD, it’s the lessons I
learned from the Challenge Course that I remember most. It saddens me that a
representative of another UCSD program, one with the same goals of empowering,
strengthening and teaching, would ever dare call those lessons useless and a
waste of money. I would gladly pay the $20 to $30 fee (not $300) to learn what
I learned from the Challenge Course any day.

I have just one thing to say to the senior staff writer and
others who feel the same way: I’m sorry. I’m sorry you will never learn the
lessons I did from the Challenge Course. And I’m sorry for all of those people
you insulted out there who have experienced it and understand its magic. I’ve
said what I have to say. You can turn your iPods back on now.

— Marissa Palin

UCSD alumna