College isn’t how it’s shown in the movies. For me, it didn’t arrive all at once (no matter how much I wanted it to). It wasn’t so much immediately reveling in my new home as it was building it brick by brick with the Macalester walls as my guiding lines. Small, seemingly insignificant moments that I later realized weren’t insignificant at all. Teachings.
The first week felt like everyone had been handed the same script. Name, major, Scottish house, first-year course, “I saw that class too.” I remember thinking I had to get it right every time, like first impressions stacked permanently. They don’t. People say slightly off things, laugh a little too hard, forget what they just asked you. It’s less polished than it looks from the outside. That was one of the first things that eased up, even if I didn’t notice it immediately.
There were quieter moments too, the kind that didn’t feel typical to the “ideal” college experience but end up defining it anyway. Sitting at the Scots vs. Wildcats game and realizing everyone except me seemed to have arrived with someone. Taking a reusable box back to my room instead of staying in Café Mac. At the time, it felt like a pattern, like I had somehow missed something essential. Looking back, it was just a moment, just one of many.
And then there were the moments that surprised me. A peanut butter and JAM session in JWall where nothing was planned and everyone was slightly offbeat, trying to harmonize lyrics that didn’t exist ten seconds earlier. It wasn’t impressive, but it was fun, genuinely fun in a way that didn’t ask anything of me. Nights on the Great Lawn that stretched longer than intended, conversations that moved past the surface without effort, people who stopped feeling like introductions and started feeling familiar.
Somewhere in all of that, I stopped feeling like I had to be “on” all the time. There’s a kind of quiet you find here that isn’t loneliness. It’s sitting in your room for a bit, or walking back early, or eating alone and not needing to explain it. It becomes a reset rather than something to fix. That balance—between being around people and returning to yourself—ended up mattering more than I expected.
Nothing about it was linear. There wasn’t a single moment where everything clicked into place. No clear shift from unfamiliar to belonging. It didn’t come from one night or one group or one decision.
It came from moments. The song you made up on the spot. The conversation that went longer than you thought it would. The thing you almost didn’t go to. The person you met by accident.
On their own, they don’t feel like much. But they stay. They stack, slowly and unevenly, until one day you look around and realize you’re not trying to feel at home anymore.
You just are.
