I really don’t like crowds. Walking through the dark side of FoCo gives me social anxiety. My walking routes are planned by their level of visibility. But I study in Baker Lobby, and sometimes I wait in the KAF line without my phone to test myself. I guess you could say I’m a bit of a masochist. I still don’t like crowds. My graduating class consisted of 20 people (gasp!), and I’ve accepted the fact that I will forever be averse to social situations in which I must interact with more than 20 people. And that’s why I am loving sophomore summer. Campus is empty, there are no lines, and I know a decent percentage of the student body. But there are still more than 20 people. In some ways, the “shrinking” of campus has forced me to have more social interactions, and I’m weirdly okay with it. Maybe it’s because I feel a sense of freedom from social pressures.
“Sophomore summer is a time for class bonding” is something we’ve all heard time and time again. But it’s true. For at least another year, we will spend time apart from each other thanks to the beauty of the D-Plan. And then we’ll only have three terms left of our undergraduate Dartmouth careers. It’s already the end of week 4 and I haven’t gotten used to my schedule. I know this is getting sappy, but now is the time to go out and do the thing you’ve always wanted to do and reach out to that person you’ve always thought is cool. They might think you’re cool, too and then you won’t have to avoid eye-contact as you awkwardly squirm past them in Collis come Fall when it’s nearly impossible to avoid human contact.
Yours truly,
Becca
