Return to Campus Met with Fresh Classroom and Construction Woes

By HAVEN HEADLEY

It seems that, when it comes to college students, people concentrate on freshmen. What about the other classes? As a returning second-year student at the University of Mary Washington, I have noticed how this year is different from the last. It is a euphoric experience to come back to campus and see old friends after being home all summer.

One of the first things I noticed was the new construction site. I never would have thought that part of Campus Walk would be closed. It has proven to be a major inconvenience! However, with this change, I have come to see new parts of the campus I had overlooked before, and I learned to leave earlier just to make it to Jepson in time. I’m still trying to get used to watching for cars in the Jepson parking lot due to the change of directional flow. Also, there is no longer a nice mulch pathway from College Avenue to Jepson, making us walk all the way around a fence. How are we supposed to get from Combs to Jepson in ten minutes without a mulch pathway?

Also, it is just as stressful for returning students to move in as it is for freshmen. Not only are we moving into a new place, but, for some of us, we are living with and around new people. We are put in an area of confusion and excitement.

However, we don’t have the luxury of moving in a week before classes start, as freshmen do. Why on earth would the school think it is acceptable for students to move in the day before classes? Some of us like to have at least one day of rest before starting classes. Moving in the day before classes is a horrible feat that I never want to suffer through again.

Many think that coming back to college classes isn’t as hard as coming to them for your first time, but those people have not realized exactly what it means to be an upper-classman. We come back to classes that are even harder than the previous semesters’. This means that we are taking on more and more material each semester while trying to keep our sanity.

It is hard on all students to come to college whether you are a freshman, sophomore, junior or senior. Try to think about the other classes when you are walking on Campus Walk. You’ll see that junior drowning in homework or that sophomore worried about their roommates. Just because it isn’t their first year doesn’t mean they are not lost and confused just as much as the rest.