Remembering way back to three years ago, after receiving a family weekend schedule in the mail when I was a freshman, my mother called me and informed me that she and my dad wouldn’t be coming—“There’s nothing there for us to do,” she reasoned. While everyone else got away from the Commons for a day, I sat alone in my room watching CAD lectures. Of course, I made them feel bad about it. They then decided to make a trip to Troy on a more convenient date, after I laid a heavy guilt trip on them since everyone else’s families came to visit on family weekend. They didn’t make the same mistake when my younger brother was a college freshman.

Admittedly, the family weekend schedule has been improved in the past couple of years. The biggest improvement was the introduction of Fall Fest on Saturday afternoon. It provides a relaxed place for students to spend time with their families and provides an opportunity for students to show their their families around their new home.

I went to Fall Fest last year. It wasn’t because my parents were here, but because I was in search of free food. I left disappointed, but not before checking out all that Fall Fest had to offer. After surveying the crowd and scanning the schedule for this year’s festival, the arts and crafts and jugglers definitely made it seem targeted towards families with elementary and middle school-aged children. This is unfortunate because, although RPI is a diverse place, I think that most students’ siblings are at least in high school.

Unless you’re a freshman, there’s no need to guilt your parents into coming to Troy for family weekend. In fact, it may be much less crowded and hectic if they choose to come on another weekend. And besides Fall Fest—if you even count Fall Fest—they won’t be missing out on anything special. There are always shows being put on by one of the many of the campus performance groups. On any given weekend, there’s at least one performance displayed in the genre of theatre, music, or comedy.