Nostalgia on Campus: A Reflection on Where Students Feel They've Grown

By Lia Chandra

Included in Spring 2021 Magazine

Every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday this semester, I’d walk past the Wendy Purcell Lounge on the top floor of RPCC to get my surveillance test. I’d look in and see the distinct rug pattern and purple couches that fill this lounge, and instantly be transported to August 19th, 2019: the first day of my freshman pre-orientation trip. Even now, when I walk by, I can  picture the trip leaders standing on the tables, screaming the instructions for ice breakers for us to do. Or sometimes, I’ll think about the late nights I spent studying in that room freshman  year, along with the friends I had made that rainy August day during my pre-orientation trip. 

As students who enter college knowing nobody, we grow during our four years to make the closest of friends right here, in the same environment. The spaces surrounding us remain physically the same, but the ways in which we experience them change as we grow. Four of my friends have shared their experiences of the places on campus where they feel they’ve grown up. 

“I don’t think I could ever count the number of times I’ve stayed in PSB until 2 am,” Emily says, reflecting on the role the Physical Sciences Building has played in her Cornell experience.  Emily continues to tell me about her growth as a dancer that took place in this spot: “I remember auditioning for the dance troupe Break Free for the first time in PSB’s atrium. Although I didn’t make it onto the team the first time I auditioned, I tried again the next semester and was accepted. I go there for practice every week now, so it’s crazy to think about how the first time I danced here I hadn’t made it onto the team.” Emily also spoke fondly about how she befriended the janitor in PSB this past December, when she was one of the few students on campus after Thanksgiving who would go there. For Emily, PSB is a place that has seen her through both the memorable and mundane moments of college — from late nights spent studying for Human Development prelims to learning new routines for her dance team. 

“Every time I walk through Rockefeller Hall, I like to pass  by room 110 to see what’s going on in there these days,” Eliza says as she explains why this spot feels so nostalgic to her. “When I was rushing APO (Alpha Phi Omega, a community service fraternity), I always went to Rockefeller 110 for rush events. I spent so many hours in that room decorating coffee sleeves and writing letters to people in homes for the elderly,” Eliza notes. “By the next semester, I was on the pledge team and went from sitting in one of the chairs in that room, listening to the former pledge team, to being the person at the front of the room and looking at the exact chairs I used to sit in,” Eliza continues. For Eliza, Rockefeller 110 saw her grow from a first year student joining new organizations to learn more about the Ithaca community, to being a leader among her peers for a cause she is passionate about. Eliza also talked about how she went to Rockefeller 110 in March 2020,  merely minutes after finding out that we were all getting sent home for the semester due to the onset of the pandemic. “Even though it felt like the world was ending, it was weirdly comforting to be in Rockefeller 110, because I had spent so many hours there before.”

“I remember sitting in that courtyard one day, realizing that I wasn’t even remotely interested in Biometry and Statistics,” Nina says as she tells me about how the ILR courtyard is the place where she feels like she has grown up on campus. Nina was talking on the phone with her mom while walking through campus sometime in November of her first semester at Cornell. It was right after taking a difficult prelim for one of her statistics classes. “I was telling my mom about how I never enjoyed going to class, as I was walking through the courtyard, and that was when I decided that I wanted to switch majors. I didn’t know what I was going to switch to just yet, but I felt so liberated by my decision. After that, I  got to experiment in my coursework and follow my interests for the first time” Nina says. For Nina, that courtyard was where she realized what it means to go to Cornell — she was not locked into one narrow field of study, and instead could take classes in disciplines that she didn’t even know existed a few months ago. “I like to go back to that courtyard to take some of my online classes now. Sometimes I think it’s funny that I go there to take classes for Global Public Health Sciences, my new major that I am actually passionate about, in the same place where I originally went to vent about my first major,” Nina says. 

Everyday, we walk through the same campus, along with so many other people who live different lives and have different stories to tell. A complete stranger you pass by in Duffield during your first year could end up becoming one of your closest friends a few months later. The places you walked through on your first day at Cornell, when your only friend may have been your roommate, could be the same place you walk through with eight of your best friends (who have come to feel like family) a few years later. When I left Ithaca last March for the pandemic, I didn’t know when we were going to be able to be back on Cornell’s campus. Coming back in the fall, it felt surreal to walk through the buildings I had classes in and pass by the benches I would sit on before the pandemic started. Now, I love to go back to these spots to reflect on how much has changed from the first memories I made there. Before the semester ends, I’d encourage everyone to find the place on campus where you feel like you grew up. Revisit that spot and reflect on how much has changed from your first memory there — and regardless of whether this was your first or last semester at Cornell —congratulate yourself for how much you’ve grown since your first day on this campus.