Different paths, same campus
Michal Elseth
Issue date: 9/10/09 Section: Focus
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First returning from summer camp at the end of August, she unpacked her summer's worth of clothes, washed them and packed them again. After this, she passed the Graduate Record Examination, or GRE.
Larson, the director of arts and crafts at Ligonier Camp in Ligonier, Pa., as well as a counselor, said she studied for the GRE whenever she had free time before taking the test a week before school started. It made for a hectic week, she said, and she welcomes her return to Hillsdale.
Larson's roommate, senior Lauren Gribble, also spent the summer studying for the GRE. She said focusing on graduate school makes her wistful about starting her last year at Hillsdale.
"When I was packing, I probably thought more about freshman year than anything else," she said.
Gribble said she had expected her senior year to feel differently than it has in the past; but so far, she said, campus life seems routine. Despite this, her senior status changes her perspective on entering another fall session.
"This is the last 'first' of the year," she said.
Having finished the GRE, Gribble and Larson plan to finish their undergraduate studies while enjoying classes in the upper levels of their majors.
"I still feel like I have so much to learn," Gribble said, "and this is just a step to continue on."
Larson said living with other college students is a change of pace from living with children every day, one she is grateful for after 11 weeks of summer camp.
Freshman Abby Obert said between the freshman lectures, hall meetings and new people, she felt like she'd come to summer camp herself until classes started. Now having settled into her new room and made it through a week of classes, college life is her new reality.
Summer's end was stressful, Obert added, even though she wasn't concerned about her classes. The separation from her family was the biggest challenge she faced leaving her Wheaton, Ill., home.
"I'm never going to live at home completely again," she said.
Sophomore Emily Zick moved this summer, too, but instead of moving back to campus, she rented a room in Ann Arbor. Zick said she is saving tuition money by attending Hillsdale as a part-time student.
This allows her the luxury of working more hours as a nanny, she said. She said her new surroundings afford fewer distractions from her studying.
"When you have fewer classes you can devote more time to each class without rushing through everything and having to pick and choose what you have to do," she said.
Spending time talking in Saga, on Grewcock Student Union couches or in dorm rooms late at night separates campus life from living at home, said Zick.
For Larson, they also separate school life and summer camp.
"Although," said Gribble, who sat curled up on her floor laughing with senior Amanda Hall, "I'm not sure it's really all that different!"
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