It’s been a really great first week back on the Hill. I moved in on Saturday in order to have some time to settle in and to spend some time with my friends here. It was a lot of fun to get my room decorated, see how I could make my new space work for me, and even to help friends play room tetris to see how to make their space perfect for them. I think the best part of moving in on Saturday was myself and all of my friends going from room to room helping each other get settled. It was a great chance to reconnect after a long summer, catch up, and simply get used to the feel back on the Hill. It was fun to see how the bare rooms transformed and became our own spaces again and to see how even though we all helped each other out our individual personalities made our rooms so different and unique. I live in North Village this year, so it’s been nice settling into the apartment as well as my room. I am in a Language House for Arabic, so there are sticky notes labeling things all over the kitchen, which is great for learning the words.
There were a lot of changes here on the Hill over the summer, and I’ve enjoyed getting used to some of them this week. There is a new website, which while not complete yet, is an interesting change and I will be curious to see how it shapes up as they finish moving around links and formatting everything. Another interesting change is the change in our ID cards. Before, they had two strips that operated separately and only worked for certain things on campus. This new system is so much nicer – there is only one strip now and it works a lot like a debit card. We can add money to it from credit and debit cards online instead of having to go to the Bursar’s office to add money like we had to before. Also, they are working to make it where we can use our cards on more off campus locations as well. It is a great new system that makes life a lot more convenient as we move into the new school year. Plus, as an added perk, the new ID cards just look better than the old design and I like them a lot.
The most important part of being back at college is obviously the classes, and my first week of classes have gone fabulously. I am a Political Science and Middle Eastern Studies Double Major, and most of my classes fall into those this semester. I have a few classes that start earlier than the night owl in me would like, but all the same, I can tell I am really going to enjoy my classes this semester. They each seem to have an interesting mix of opinions and that will definitely lead to some interesting class discussions, especially in classes with political topics. For example, Environmental Policy has a mix of Environmental Studies majors, Political Science Majors, and people taking it for fun; and each group has its own mix of different opinions based on their previous classes and their background knowledge. I personally really like classes in which discussions can create an environment that allows for different opinions to each be expressed and elaborated on because I think that is where people learn best and also have the best ability to develop new, stronger opinions than before. But then, maybe it is just because I am a fairly opinionated person myself and I love a good debate, I am a Poli Sci major after all. So anyway, my first week back on the Hill has been wonderful and I personally can’t wait to see what the rest of the year holds in store for me and my friends.
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