“Wait, where do you go to college again?” If you’re not from the same region as your school, chances are you’ve heard this question before. A dreaded conversation we so desperately don’t want to have with our grandparent’s next-door neighbor or the loser from high school you run into at Chipotle. We’re asked it all the time. When you chose to swim downstream and attend a school no one else in your high school was going to, you thought it would be refreshing. Little did you know, you’d have to explain where you go to college every time you talk to some moron who probably couldn’t even get in.
You’d think that going to college in the middle of BFE would be as boring as heck. But in reality, it’s the opposite. I love my school (Go Saints!). I’m proud to tell the incompetent boob who questions me that my school is one of the top liberal arts colleges in the Northeast. Small schools rock and everyone should know it.
As kids, we believed college was this big scary place, swarming with older kids with beards. When we heard the term "college", we immediately thought of the major universities we see every Saturday on College GameDay. However, not everyone can attend Boston College or Notre Dame, and not everyone wants to. There are thousands of colleges out there, and chances are you picked the one you were meant for.
Even though we don’t have rowdy football games, or frat parties every night, we have our own perks. Everywhere we go, we see a face we recognize. We never have to chase down a door before it slams in our face because the kind Saint in front of us has been holding it for a solid 30 seconds. College students are notorious jerks. However, there’s something about tiny colleges in Nowheresville, USA that draw in the only population of considerate teenagers in the world.
Let’s talk family. Not about the one we grew up with, but about the one we spend the best years of our lives with. We never once imagined we would have such a strong group of friends to call our second family. They’re there for us, no matter what. With such a small campus, we’re constantly running into them for a quick hug while grabbing a coffee before class. Over breaks, we miss their smiling faces, and their ability to have our backs in every situation.
The Tick Tock is our religion. Sergi’s is a must on Saturday nights. And we’re all waiting for the naked run senior year. These are traditions at St. Lawrence, and every little college has it's own. Somehow these rituals bond us even more. We know that if we pass a pizza box in the hallway, the owner will offer us a slice. We know that if we get stuck alone at night, someone will come to the rescue. And we know that if we went to any other school, we wouldn’t be nearly as happy.
