College would be really boring if it was exactly the same all four years. I’ve been reflecting recently on how my interests have changed since I first arrived on campus, and on how many newly important parts of my life I didn’t even know about when I first got here. How, magically, even squarely in the middle of my college experience, I still find myself discovering new things to love about Oberlin all the time.
Two of the biggest examples of this, for me, are cooperative living and Contact Improvisation, both things I was conceptually familiar with before Oberlin but never actually got face to face with. I knew about the co-ops before I arrived at Oberlin, but I didn’t consider joining one until Spring of my first year, when I became close friends with a member of Pyle Inn, a dining-only co-op located on North Campus. As I began to spend more time in the co-ops, I realized that this culture of care and cooperation was one that I deeply wanted to participate in, and I ended up joining Harkness Co-op in the fall of my second year. Hark immediately became a core part of my Oberlin experience; I can’t imagine who I would be without the experiences I have gained here. Similarly, after taking a first-year seminar in the Dance department, I ended up taking a Contact Improv Experimental College class in the Spring of my first year, and I immediately fell in love with the form (and the Dance building and faculty). That same semester, I declared an unexpected Dance major, and I now teach that same ExCo class that I was once a student in.
But there are other small things I have grown to love as well. I now love midwest cities and architecture. I love striking up conversations with people I don’t really know just because we happen to be in the same place. I love Ohio sunsets. I love the Cleveland airport. I love homemade granola. I love visible mending. I love performance art. I love buckeyes. I love putting a million posters on my wall. I love lying in the grass and waiting for people I know to walk past so we can bump into each other and chat. I love going to see weird dance and theater productions and walking away unsure about how I feel. I love teaching. I love line dancing. I love taking walks. I love doing dishes. I love writing emails (I know. It makes me a freak). And I’m sure I could come up with dozens more if I thought a little harder about it.
I guess all this is to say, you never know what you’ll find in college. When I was deciding where to go to college, there were a lot of things I focused on that don’t feel super relevant anymore. A lot of the things I loved most about Oberlin as a prospie are now such a normal part of my day-to-day life that I don’t really have to think about them. So perhaps, if you are currently pondering college decisions, I would encourage you worry less about all the details and daydream a little more about what you might discover once you get here. I personally can’t wait to see what I fall in love with next!
