*TRIGGER WARNING*
You probably haven't heard of the Winter in the City program, because you've never been in a situation where you were told that it will help boost your social skills. But for people like me who don't have as much social experience as others, it seems a lot like something that would be useful. For those who don't know, the idea of Winter in the City is for college students to meet students from other colleges and learn practical social skills by getting to know each other. If you're looking to get a glimpse of adulthood and learn the practical skills you need to get by in life, then this definitely sounds like the program for you.
Except, that it's not.
You'd think that a bunch of college-age people would attend such a program as Winter in the City because they want to learn about social networking, public speaking, and/or how to successfully get through a job interview. But what they don't tell you is that they only deal with rudimentary social skills you basically learn in elementary and middle school, while also going on field trips to the Central Park Zoo or the Museum of Natural History. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with that kind of program existing--it absolutely will help a lot of people! But if this is the kind of program you're running, then I have to know that before I make the irreversible decision to spend more than a thousand dollars on it. Otherwise, I get stuck with a bunch of college kids who don't know the first thing about proper social etiquette!
Let me tell you a little about who we're dealing with here. We have a guy who interrupts others with loud noises, criticizes any ideas that he thinks are wrong and pretends to order a sandwich just because he zoned out of the conversation at one point. Then we have someone who puts their face right in yours every time they try to talk to you. And to top it all off, there's a misogynist who's only there because he wants to "learn to pick up girls." And I'm not even going to mention the rest.
Again, the program itself isn't the problem, but it's the way it was advertised that completely threw me off. I'm sorry, but if I sign up for an expensive program to learn about practical life skills, then I expect to be with other people who are willing to cooperate and learn the same things. And I expect those things to be new stuff that I haven't already learned, rather than hearing someone explain to someone else that it's rude to make jokes about gender objectification and offensive ethnic stereotypes.
But the last straw for me is when I heard someone use "SJW retard' as a synonym for someone who defends gender and ethnic communities from distasteful jokes. Obviously, the guy couldn't stand that someone was contradicting his beliefs, so he went and uttered yet another offense. Forget the tiny quirks of the other people, there is no good excuse for putting down an entire well-established community for no reason! The worst part is, he got away with it. This is a new low for a program that claims itself to be a "college readiness" program.
I give Winter in the City a 1.4 out of 10 rating.
