I can comfortably and definitively say that my time at Vassar has defined who I am as a person. I have never before been in a place filled with so many engaged, brilliant and beautiful people. My experiences here have been entirely shaped by my peers, and as I look toward graduation, I know that what I am going to miss most about Vassar is not meal plans, senior housing or the amazing campus, but the presence and proximity of over 2,000 impassioned people.
Vassar students are incredibly involved. For the last three years I have served as an officer of Vassar College’s Emergency Medical Services (VCEMS), and this past year I was given the privilege of being named captain. Being an EMT on campus has given me the opportunity to interact with many Vassar students at some of their most vulnerable moments. Despite the circumstances, I have always been struck by how deeply caring and concerned Vassar students are for one another. Regardless of the severity of the situation, Vassar students are always extremely supportive of and concerned about their classmates. On many occasions, friends of sick students have debated over who is going to accompany their ailing companion to the hospital because they all wanted so badly to show their support in a time of need.
VCEMS’s volunteer EMTs give their valuable time on nights and weekends to help serve their community-time they could spend relaxing, studying or partying with their friends. I can’t speak highly enough about this wonderful group, over 50 of them volunteering to literally spring into action at a moment’s notice in the service of their community. Despite their great service, Vassar’s EMTs are just one example of students going out of their way to better the community they live in.
Vassar students are diverse in their interests and are experts at combining various fields of study to create new, exciting ways to approach problems. In addition to being an EMT, I am a drama major with a focus in lighting and set design. For me, this area of study has been the perfect liberal arts experience. I’ve had the amazing opportunity to collaborate with my peers to create exciting and engaging works of art. Once we have completed the artistic and conceptual work, I spend countless hours on a computer drafting program, doing calculations and drafting in order to turn artistic ideas into an architectural and mechanical reality. For me, Vassar students’ ability to move between the artistic and the technical, the qualitative and the quantitative, has come to typify a liberal arts education.
I know that after I graduate what is really going to stick with me are not classes, lectures or special events, but the fleeting moments of beauty and amazement that my classmates and I have encountered together. To me, it’s always been the little things that count. I will never forget my assignment to watch and observe the sunrise (twice!) with my lighting design class, epic spur of the moment hikes on the Farm, watching a hot air balloon land across Hooker Avenue, deciding to go bike jousting with friends during parents’ weekend, watching asteroid showers from the Earth circle, being on call with EMS during Founder’s Day, biking around Poughkeepsie with my sculpture class, or venturing out into snow storms to sled down sunset hill. More than anything else, it is these moments of companionship, togetherness and beauty that will define my time at Vassar.
Thinking back to when I arrived in August of 2006, I don’t think I ended up following the path that I had originally planned. Which is great: I am not the pre-med, cognitive science major that I imagined I would be at this point. Instead, I would say that Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote, “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail,” has been very applicable to my Vassar experience. I thoroughly enjoyed my time as a member of the rugby team, but I am also quite satisfied that this year instead I served as the president of the Black Students Union and secretary of the Council of Black Seniors.
On another note, I would like to encourage every student to visit the ALANA center for a Black Students Union meeting or any student of color organization’s weekly discussion meeting. (No, you do not have to be the ethnicity of the org in order to discuss or observe.) I think the majority of students on campus do not realize how alienated an individual can feel when they are the only or one of very few minorities in a classroom, at a party, or in the library. Our College claims to be diverse. Therefore, students on campus ought to acknowledge those differences if we are truly to call ourselves a tolerant institution. The many incidents on campus that occurred over the past four years related to cultural ignorance and/or intolerance should serve as a reminder that although the Vassar bubble is full of intelligent scholars, it is not immune to ineptitude in some sense.
Community forums can only go so far toward correcting cultural ignorance; I encourage all students, faculty and administrators to increase their awareness of their own subconscious racial and cultural biases. (Yes, we all have them.)
Taking humanities and social science courses outside of my major division was one of the most academically rewarding decisions I made. In addition to taking Spectrometric Identification of Organic Compounds and Protein Chemistry, I also took Introductory Sociology and Black Intellectual History. Looking back, I would encourage every scientist to venture outside of Mudd and Olmsted every once in a while to learn about the world outside of science. (What happens outside of science does indeed affect you regardless of your awareness of the fact.)
I think the breadth of courses and activities that I have engaged in is what was most satisfying about my Vassar experience. I am very appreciative that I have never felt locked into a specific path-not course-, major- nor extracurricular activity-wise.
This past fall I had the opportunity to talk with a number of alumnae/i about my experience here at Vassar. I was asked why I chose the school, what activities I was involved in, my favorite place on campus, and a number of other questions that were meant to detail my personal experience over the past four years. Toward the end of the conversation, I was asked the inevitable: “So what is the campus climate really like right now?” It was about halfway through the fall semester, and at that point the situation wasn’t so great. Spirits were low, and students, faculty members, administrators and staff were all frustrated. Words like “transparency” and “economic downturn” had become part of everyday conversations. And so, I was honest with the alums: The campus attitude was fairly negative, but not at all uninspiring. I had come to the conclusion that students were taking action, demanding the best resolutions from their administrators for one reason: Vassar students love this place.
For me, drawing this conclusion was a revelation of sorts that I had yet to recognize for some reason. I knew that if anyone asked me about my Vassar experience my automatic response would be: “It has been incredible. I love this place!” And yet for the first time I was really able to approach these sentiments as an observer. I watched my fellow students spend time organizing protests, making signs, creating videos, signing petitions, participating in ergathons and writing letters to the Miscellany, showing their love for their academics, their professors and their staff members, all the while pushing those in charge to make the choices that were the best for the College.
These choices were anything but black and white, and I watched as peer institutions struggled through the same process. However, I couldn’t help but think that the situation at Vassar would always be better-our students just cared more. Despite the challenges that came the way of the College, students were still continuing with their academics and extracurriculars. There were three-, even four-hour Vassar Student Association meetings, with students using the opportunity to make their voices heard. No opinion was deemed unimportant and all were expressed in an effort to make the College a better place for its students.
Any Vassar student here both first and second semester will admit that the campus climate took a dramatic turn after Winter Break , and students seemed to be much more preoccupied in showing their love in more traditional ways. Plays were sold out, a capella concerts overwhelmingly attended, and the stands at men’s volleyball games (and even men and women’s lacrosse games) were overflowing. Students supported the events, their peers, their professors and their community love-everything from thesis presentations to readings by English professors and composition classes, to a local elementary school threatened by budget cuts.
By the end of spring semester, there is always the anticipation of what the next academic year will hold. From many of my fellow outgoing seniors I’ve heard concerns (and excitement) about changes that will come to Vassar next fall, and it’s been sad to watch their realization that they will no longer be a part of that immediate Vassar community. Yes, as the Alumnae and Alumni Association of Vassar College will remind you, the seniors are becoming part of that vast network of Vassar alumnae/i, an exclusive club of sorts that is still allowed to come back once a year to celebrate Founder’s Day. But the experience won’t be the same, and our love for Vassar will be taking another form. We’ll be celebrating it whenever we see our friends in New York City or Asheville, N.C. or maybe even Alaska, writing about it through e-mails and Facebook posts, and reading about it whenever we catch a classmate’s name in a newspaper article, or even a byline. And most important, our love will be forever extended to those current students at Vassar through our faith in knowing that those already here are showing the same love that has made the past four years nothing less than incredible.
I’m sitting at the long center table on the right side of the Library in the middle of finals week. Within the past two days here, I’ve witnessed stress and exhaustion-induced craziness ranging from Red Bull chugging contests to a capella concerts, with a little bit of studying squeezed in between. I could recite all of the selling points of this space that I’ve ingrained into my memory from years as a tour guide, such as the Gothic-style architecture, the Flemish tapestries or the stained glass portrait of Lady Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia. However, these facts definitely don’t convey to prospective students the atmosphere in the Library during finals, just like it’s impossible to truly know Vassar until you get here and experience it for yourself.
As the first person from my high school to attend Vassar in several years, I had no idea what to expect. I’d already mentally prepared myself for the frigid winters and had decided early that I would use my Southern charm to make new friends, since I knew absolutely nobody. Although I had told everyone in Nashville that I couldn’t wait for a “fresh start,” I worried, as move-in day crept closer, that I had gone a little too far with this decision.
Four years later, I couldn’t be happier. I honestly believe that my “why not?” attitude from freshman year has shaped my Vassar experience in the best ways possible. I remember impulsively deciding to run for freshman class secretary within the first weeks of school for the sole reason of meeting new people. When I won, I had unknowingly discovered an activity that would follow me throughout most of my Vassar career. The Vassar Student Association (VSA) was the ideal outlet for someone like me who wanted to be involved in every part of campus life. Whether it’s the Committee on College Life, Drug and Alcohol Education Committee or the Judicial Board, if you have an opinion here, there are plenty of outlets to make yourself heard.
I remember at the end of freshman year (clearly still riding high from first-year-of-college enthusiasm) Selina, Lucy and I decided to start a style magazine at Vassar in hopes of celebrating the cool, eclectic and creative students here. We clearly had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, having no magazine experience whatsoever and even less authority on “style.” I just remember standing in front of the VSA budget meeting, as a meek little freshmen, telling the Executive Board that we needed a budget of “approximately $30,000″ in order to start our magazine. We could hear the group laughing at us before we even shut the door to the meeting room. Despite minor setbacks such as this one, my “why not?” attitude from freshman year is still going strong.
After eight semesters here, I’ve found that this mentality is inherent in every Vassar student and has seeped into almost every aspect of life here. Whether it’s taking 100 level art history classes your senior year, exchanging your Thursday Dutch routine for Late Night at the Loeb or taking a day to check out the Dia Beacon, exploration and experimentation are defining factors at Vassar. Sometimes it takes stepping outside of the College’s gates to really appreciate the value of the Vassar experience.
In my TH, we have a poster hanging in our kitchen that says, “Nobody wishes they got more sleep in college.” While this may sound crazy-who at Vassar consistently feels well-rested, anyway?-it really does ring true. Looking back on my college experience, it’s the nighttime chats with friends, the hours-long procrastination sessions at the ACDC, and the random daily occurrences that shape a college experience. Although the classroom lectures and discussions are great for intellectual development, four years at Vassar constitutes much more than that. So even though everyone sitting in the Library with me has tons of work to do, I’m glad we are all able to take a little break and appreciate the Redbull contests and musical entertainment that I know we’ll miss very soon.
All the living rooms in the Town Houses (THs) look about the same: one window, linoleum flooring, and-for some reason I don’t think I’ll ever understand-no lighting.
In an attempt to set our TH apart, my housemates and I called our living room “Florida” this year. Our striped orange couch, purple carpet, faux-glass patio table purchased at an estate sale, and indoor plants gave it this sort of tropical living facility vibe that made us feel not like seniors as much as senior citizens.
Which is, of course, pretty funny considering we’re all 21 and 22 years old. But anyone who has ever taken a poli-sci class can tell you that the spaces we occupy alter the activities we do in them and thus our identities. So it’s not totally impossible to believe that we’ve spent the past year acting a little like old people-excuse, me-active adults.
I’ve spent a good deal of time at Vassar doing the kinds of things that your grandpa does when he hangs out in his plastic patio furniture shouting about what everyone else is doing wrong. I’ve had the pleasure of writing for the Humor & Satire section and editing the Features section of The Miscellany News – tasks that have required that I poke fun at everyone and everything at Vassar and take on a sort of weird public critic persona. At times I’ve felt a little like grandpa sitting there in his orthopedic shoes shouting insults from the corner when all I really wanted to do was make everyone laugh.
And sometimes I felt like grandma too. I wrote the Humor and Satire section’s “Weekly Calendar,” a long-standing tradition that dates back to the much-missed-but-not-forgotten Miscellany News Backpage, and includes a daily themed nod to the historic-if poorly attended-tea in the Rose Parlor. In fact, I’ve never actually been to tea in the Rose Parlor for all the hours I’ve spent making fun of campus culture through it. Regardless, thinking so much about tea in the Rose has sometimes made me wonder whether although I physically appear 21, I might actually be a 70-year-old dandy sippin’ on Earl Grey in the Rose à la Benjamin Button.
The trick, I think, is to remember that we never actually have lived like AARP members. Vassar is a place where we’ve all tried on different ages for size. We’ve talked as if we’re in our mid-40s in an afternoon seminar one moment, and behaved with the maturity level of toddlers at TH parties only hours later. Then we’ve felt like arthritic seniors again the morning after.
And now we’re leaving the retirement community, ditching the faux glass table aesthetic, and won’t return for another 50 years. We’re retiring from retirement. Or something.
Everyone’s been bellyaching about how hard it is to sum up four years at Vassar especially as we’re clinging to it the way Leo clung to that piece of wood in Titanic, but I have to admit that I can sum up my Vassar education: I’ve learned to be open here. Vassar and the friends and professors I’ve had here have helped me to see why things are interesting and to see why they’re funny.
I’m so grateful to Vassar because I’m curious and open, and I know it’s because I went here. The secret, I’ve learned, to being a critic, is not only to be-hopefully-interesting, but interested. Which brings me to the point of this retrospective: The great thing about not actually being an old dog is that we can still learn new tricks.
So until the day I actually join the AARP, goodbye “Florida,” goodbye patio furniture, goodbye Vassar and goodbye tea in the Rose! I’m ready to come out of retirement, and I’m ready to try out my new tricks.
