Berkley Center

Every day of my past two weeks at the University of Costa Rica (UCR) has seemed like a repetition of Georgetown’s annual Student Activities (SAC) Fair. The campus’s front lawn is swarming with students, tents, tables, and people in brightly colored t-shirts trying to hand me pamphlets in hopes that I will join their cause. However, UCR is not in the midst of an organized extracurricular activity push, but gearing up for this year’s student government elections.

For many students, SAC Fair is an overwhelming wave of information about Georgetown’s countless student publications, performance groups, sports teams, service clubs, and cultural and religious organizations. However, thus far in my time at UCR, I’ve only noticed two forms of extracurricular activities—clubs based on academic majors and the five student political parties.

At first, I was disappointed in the lack of civil society I seemed to find at UCR. I’m accustomed to having a schedule teeming with meetings, events, and social gatherings; that’s exactly the schedule I sought out at Georgetown and the type of culture I was looking when I applied to colleges. However, according to social theorists beginning with Alexis de Tocqueville, there is a direct relationship between civil society and democracy, a process that Costa Ricans highly value as evidenced by the amount of political participation I’ve witnessed on campus. But does the lack of organizations outside political parties signify a weakness of this democratic system?

According to Tocqueville, civil associations serve to foster democracy on a grassroots level, inspiring investment in the community and a larger relationship between the government and the people. That is certainly true of the established political parties at UCR. According to one of my Costa Rican classmates, almost all the parties are united on the major and timely issues, while they differ in more minor goals that may be more difficult to achieve.

However, the vibrancy and centrality of political life on campus means that students’ voices are heard by the administration and even the federal government. UCR is located just outside the heart of Costa Rica's capital, San Jose, meaning students have the opportunities to participate in national politics if they so choose. And earlier this month, they did in force. Thousands of students, including representatives of all five political parties, marched through the streets surrounding the university to assert their right to photocopy texts, the method we use for class readings rather than purchasing textbooks.

Georgetown is located similarly close to the White House and Capitol Building, but it’s rather rare for students take to the streets in political demonstration. Hoyas ran to the White House the night President Obama announced that Osama Bin Laden had been killed, and some occasionally attend rallies on the National Mall, but class has never been canceled to allow students to participate in a march. But that is exactly what UCR’s rector did a few weeks ago, signifying that he hears and respects the interests of his students.

The University of Costa Rica is ultimately a commuter school, which makes organized extracurricular activities less feasible as some students travel about two hours one way to get to campus every day. The variety of extracurricular options at Georgetown most likely yields a greater number of students that are more directly invested in the campus community, and there is probably a large portion of UCR students that is completely disengaged from these political groups.

However, the smaller size of civil society at the University of Costa Rica doesn’t mean that the school’s student government is weaker. In fact, the institution of political parties open to all students and their ties to national issues seem to yield an incredibly strong democratic system. While the plethora of extracurricular opportunities at Georgetown have surely enriched my college experience, this semester has been a lesson in the efficiency of simplicity in the creation of a democratic culture.