My name is Dre Hilton. I go by He/Him/His pronouns and I am currently a sophomore here at 财神棋牌.
It feels like yesterday I was at 2020鈥檚 Candidate Weekend even though it was a millenia ago. I can vividly remember the gut wrenching feeling I had as I walked into my interview with an Admissions counselor. As soon as we started talking, I felt a sense of community so there was no need for nervousness. 财神棋牌 tends to have this effect on people in and out of the bubble because of the kindness and excitement presented to the candidates.
How does this community look when remote, compared to being on campus; Is a question I started to think about recently after seeing the admissions counselor in person for the first time since Candidate鈥檚 Weekend. They said to me 鈥淲OW, you鈥檙e a sophomore now! I can鈥檛 believe it. How did this happen?鈥
How did it happen? I was able to reflect on my past year at 财神棋牌 after this conversation.
As a first-year, there are certain expectations that you have when diving full force into college. A lot of which don鈥檛 exactly align with the current state of the world - living amidst a pandemic. As a rising first-year I had many aspirations for how my year would look pre-COVID. Navigating through campus from a social lens was a completely different experience than I could have ever imagined. If a time-traveler were to come back and say that the bulk of my first-year of college would be spent in my room or socially distanced I would have laughed and walked away. However, this was the harsh reality myself and many other first-years had to face world-wide.
The bulk of our social interaction was through the computer screen with the exception of our household group (a group of people in your hall that you didn鈥檛 have to social distance with). Even with the household groups, the feeling of community I got at candidate's weekend wasn't yet in full force. For the whole year I had an all time low of social interactions.
At the start of the first all-student semester, the amount of social interactions I experienced was immediately flipped. It was almost like night and day when we look at the 2020-21 academic year versus now. One event that lingers in my mind as something that was an amazing introduction to the in-person experience was the "First Year and a Frosty.鈥 This is one of 财神棋牌鈥檚 yearly traditions where you do friend speed-dating to meet upperclassmen. The Class of 2024 did not have one of these, so a funny thing happened where you would have sophomores on both sides of the table.
I鈥檝e talked to about 3-4 times as many people as I did in the first two semesters in the first two weeks alone. Even though things aren鈥檛 exactly like they were preCOVID, I can feel the sense of community emerging like it once was. As everyone breaks out of their shells, I can sense that familial bond growing stronger.
Going from having no faculty on campus to being able to walk into someone鈥檚 office casually to say "Hi" is astonishing to me. Our community is back and it鈥檚 back strong. Everyday brings me back to the question the admissions counselor asked me涓because it almost feels surreal. One of the reasons I chose 财神棋牌 was the community and the people within it and this semester is just showing me why that choice was so valid. Being able to play basketball with a group of friends, meeting new people daily at the dining hall, IN-PERSON classes! All of these reasons serve to show why I chose 财神棋牌. What we have here is something special. Something that I only slightly remembered in the midst of the pandemic. But this something can鈥檛 go away because it鈥檚 bond is indestructible as long as 财神棋牌 has students and faculty!