Making Campus Connections: A Recap of Freshman Year

Looking back on my freshman year of college, I'd like to say that I had gotten through somewhat successfully. As a sophomore, nothing is more nostalgic than seeing the freshmen scramble across campus to find their classes and get the same giddy feeling I did when they find the Syracuse hotspots. It brings me back to my very first semester on University Hill when everything was still fresh and new.

I sit writing my first blogpost in the Starbucks that stands behind my freshman year dorm, where I spent countless hours sipping on a grande vanilla iced coffee with almond milk, writing papers for my prerequisite communications classes, and hiding the tears I shed over an assigned Spanish movie. The barstool perched by the window reminds me of how freeing it felt to get my first real taste of independence. I turn my head and see Dineen Hall, home to the College of Law and those precious all-nighters leading up to my midterms and finals.

Peeping behind Dineen is the Carrier Dome. I've stood on its student section bleachers cheering for the Orange. I've brunched on its field. I've heard the ruckus of monster truck shows through its concrete walls. I've spilled its campus-famous nachos all over me. I've compiled a massive collection of wrist bands from all of its home games. I've climbed its steps to get to my 8 a.m. statistics class in record time. Now, one of the biggest cranes in the U.S. hangs above Dome. Hopefully, the new batch of freshmen can still experience the Dome for what it is with that giant yellow monstrosity propelled above it.

If I turn my head just enough, I see Sadler Dining Hall. I think the best way to explain my memories of this freshman year gem is to walk through a normal winter Saturday morning. A messy bun atop my head and worn out Ugg boots slipping off of my feet, I cross my arms and sprint through the blizzard-stricken wind tunnel that is the 10-foot distance from Lawrinson Hall's lobby to Sadler. My friends and I meet at our usual high-top table lined by the scrambled egg pizza pies. Yes, you did read that correctly. Egg pizza. We make our rounds in the dining hall hoping to find something new and appealing. Yet again, we return with a bowl of cereal or a bagel. We jumpstart our college caffeine kick by making concoctions of different iced coffee and almond milk flavors. Then, we pass the time of the lazy Saturday and sit at that high-top tables for hours until the Food Service employees start giving us questionable looks. Finally, we come to a consensus that we should leave, making plans on our way out of when we should meet at Sadler again for lunch.

Up the road sits SUNY ESF, the other college campus on University Hill that nobody bothers to mention along the Syracuse tour route. Well, knowing my inner-explorer, of course, the forestry school buildings is also full of my memories. I recall my impromptu decisions to take a detour on my way home to peek inside the ESF building and browse around at all of the taxidermy animals that stared at me through the other side of their glass cases. However, my favorite moments were the ones spent with my closest friends at sunset when we found our way through a maze of staircases up to the roof of the building. We would sit and share our thoughts until the sunset between the trees; it was sincere.

Perhaps the place that takes the crown for being the home to my most precious freshman year memories is the place that was my actual home: Lawrinson Hall. The twentieth floor—yes, the fire drills were bad—was the place that saw me grow as a person day after day. Lawrinson, which my friends and I later dubbed “Larry,” is the only place I can associate with my first time home decorating, my first time sleeping in a twin XL bed, and my first time setting off a fire alarm with burnt popcorn. At home in South Jersey, my bedroom is my safe haven and my escape, but in college, my dorm room adopted a brand new purpose. It was my place of reflection. I wouldn’t dare take that 20-minute walk back along Irving Ave. until the absolute end of my day. At that point, classes were over, homework was finished, and social encounters halted. My walks home helped me wind down as I blasted my “destress” playlist between the advertisements in my pre-premium days of using Spotify. I would return to room 2011 to think about all the day’s events and process what another day in faraway Upstate New York had done for me.

After taking the time to write out the descriptions of my aforementioned experiences, I realize that my freshman year was fairly uneventful. I’m not able to say that I have very many unbelievably crazy college tales of my first year at the highly acclaimed party school, but that’s not what I care about anyway. I have these places that only need a glimpse to bring the memories flooding back. As silly as it sounds, everywhere in Syracuse, from the dining halls to ESF, helped me realize that forming a connecting with a college is about way more than bragging on social media about the signature campus landmarks. For me, it involves making memories that are so strong that they elicit a recurring feeling every time you go back or even look back at photographs. You know the feeling you get when you hear a song and it takes you back to an oddly specific moment in your past, or when you smell a scent that is too familiar to go on about your day without trying to trace exactly where you’ve smelled it before? It’s that kind of feeling.

West Campus Starbucks, Dineen Hall, the Carrier Dome, Sadler Dining Hall, SUNY ESF, and most importantly, Lawrinson Hall: thank you for welcoming me to my four years at Syracuse with open arms and helping me form unparalleled connections with this campus. You’ve helped me navigate my freshman year successfully, and you set me free to experience the other side of campus in these next three years. Watson Hall and Marshall Street, you’re next.