by Jonathan O’Connor Staff Writer
I can still remember my first day as an undergraduate in Connecticut. My mother cried and my father laughed. I was 18 and had the whole world ahead of me. It was the first time that I was on my own, and I have to admit, I was nervous.
The day I moved into the dorms, I was scared. There was some comfort in knowing that the people around me were going through the same thing. Presumably, this was everyone’s first go-around at the whole college thing and we all had no idea what to do with ourselves. I made friends. We bonded over first-year jitters and less than stellar teachers. We shared things.
This year, very much like my first year as an undergraduate, marked a transitional phase in my life. I became a graduate student. When making the decision whether or not to live on campus, I knew I wanted the full student experience. When the time came, I put down my housing deposit and let fate run its course.
I’m not going to lie, I hoped, planned even, to be placed in ACA House. The idea of being in a legitimate dorm again was in no way appealing and I wanted my own space to do my work. I thought my odds were pretty good. Surely they wouldn’t put a graduate in the same building as an undergraduate freshman. I was wrong.
On my first day in Spring House I couldn’t help but think back to my first year as an undergraduate. I thought about the insecurity, the uncertainty, and just the general awkwardness that comes with finding your place somewhere new. When I thought about it, as similar as this transition was, the experience couldn’t have been more different. At our first floor meeting, I sat down, smiled, and said hello to the people around me. Crickets. I forgot that I was supposed to act socially awkward. During the social part of the meeting, where a soda—chugging contest turned into a wet t-shirt contest, my roommate and I decided to go our own way. And that is how it has stayed for most of my time here.
Living in Spring House as a graduate can be very isolating, but I don’t imagine it is any more isolating than the other living situations available to students at SCAD. No matter where you are in your life, living in dorms is just weird. We all come from different places and are automatically thrust into a community. I don’t know what I have in common with my neighbors, but I’m willing to find out.
I feel like whether I had lived in Spring House, ACA or off-campus I would face the same challenges. I know that I may be only one of a handful of graduate students living in Spring House, but I do recognize that whether graduate or undergraduate, we all do have at least a couple things in common. We are all students. We all want to make the best of our time at SCAD. And we all work, a lot.
From time to time, I complain about my living situation, but things could be much worse. Although I could spend my time wondering how things would be if I were around more graduate students, I choose to accept the thing that I cannot change and appreciate the environment around me.
