At graduation time, seniors look back on their four years on the Hill
Geoff Peckham ’08
News Co-Editor
“I f#%&ing hate this place.”
Strong words, and a lot of us have said them. McDaniel College has been good to us, but not always. From the Wall to the Quad, from Blanche to the Mansion, many of us have had problems with this campus at one point or another.
Yet we’re still here.
There have been bogus citations, uptight administrators, ignorant campus safety officers, and an ever-rising tuition. Ask graduating seniors all of the ways in which this school has frustrated them, and you may get a plethora of answers.
Mistakes have been made at all levels regarding credits or qualifications, there has been unnecessary resistance when attempting to accomplish even the smallest task, a lack of opportunities when it counts, and the food has pretty much sucked all four years. The talk of transferring fluctuates, and people insist that they won’t be back next year.
Yet we’re still here. Ask those same seniors why they stayed.
“My friends.”
“The friends I’ve made.”
“My close group of friends.”
We’ve all read the slogan, “Changing Lives Since 1867.” A lot of us probably didn’t give it much thought when we first arrived here, but for those graduating soon, it may ring a little truer. Lives do change here, but it isn’t always because of the school. It’s the people. It’s in the characters of this story on the Hill that we’ve called college.
The overzealous partiers, the ones who will invite you over for a keg-stand because it’s Wednesday. The drama nerds who take their craft so seriously they almost can’t function in any other setting. The Greek-for-lifers, the ones who take so much pride in their fraternity or sorority, all other Greek life pales in comparison. We have jocks, cadets, musicians, sports junkies, fitness freaks, fashion mongers, video-game addicts, indie kids, tomboys, intellectual wannabes, and countless other types of people.
But there’s so much beneath each McDaniel student. Everyone has left their own mark on this campus, and on each other. These are the characters this school has provided us. Without each individual to play their part, the story wouldn’t be complete. McDaniel wouldn’t be complete, and neither would we. It is the people of McDaniel that make it what it is. It is the characters on campus that give the campus itself character.
Everyone may have had their problems one way or another on the Hill, but because we all have each other to live through those problems, we have all become closer. We are tight-knit, so it doesn’t matter. We all still care deep down about this place. Some of us may hate to admit it, but we hate to love McDaniel, and love to hate it at the same time. It’s been part of the story.
We are all still here, but soon we won’t be. Our parts may end, but the story will go on. More characters will come, to add to the marks that we’ve left. And in turn, McDaniel will leave the same mark on them. And sooner or later, when we’ve had time to reflect on our college days, on the people we’ve become as a result, we all may be saying the same thing:
“I f#%&ing love that place.”
Additional contributions were made by Bill Kauffman.