Prep school is four years of growing in a hormone-filled environment where everyone is supportive and you are required to be somewhat of an adult, but you are also babysat while you are doing your homework. Through this strange four-year period of your life, you build some of the strongest relationships with peers and adults. Although some of us vow to never set foot on campus after graduation, for all of the long bus rides, forced community meals, dress codes and relationships that tie you to the school whose name is on your diploma, we find our way back to where, for four years (or as long as you were on campus), you grew as a person and a student. This, however, is not without a few things that go through your mind, in no particular order.
1. “Wow, I do not go here anymore.”
As strange as it sounds, a part of your life you will never get back is in memories of that campus. Even though you remember the exact chair you graduated from, it still feels strange to not be a student here anymore. Yet somehow you still feel bound by the rules that you had when you were a student there. Also somehow, you feel you need to break all of them because they do not apply to you anymore.
2. “Things have changed.”
Regardless if you are stepping back onto campus six months or six years (or like me, two years) after graduation, for better or worse things have changed. They may be things you had wanted to happen when you were a student, or things that make you think the school has seen better days.
3. “Damn, this school is pretty.”
Especially if your school is in New England, this is something that you may not have recognized while walking in six inches of snow that's still falling on the way to class at 8:30 a.m. it may have slipped your mind to look around and be grateful for a beautiful school.
4. “Who goes here anymore?”
If you are a recent grad, this is something that you can understand. Most of your friends have graduated. It is strange to look around and not know every face walking around. The first year out, you know a good number of people who you left there. After that, it seems like there is way more people you have never seen in your life.
5. “Where are my friends who go here?”
Somehow when you realize that yes, you are an alum, you forget that not everyone who you were friends with at school has become an alum. When you do finally get to see them, it is amazing, it is like you never left.
6. “Are the friends I graduated with on (or near) campus?”
Coming back for a major weekend, we are always looking to see the friends we graduated with. So you can cause more trouble than you did as a student.
7. “Do not come near me.”
I am going to venture to say that every school regardless of whether it is public or private has one student that you would be happy to never see again after graduation. Well, they always seem to find you when you step back onto campus. Bonus points if they give you the most uncomfortable hug ever that you never asked for.
8. “Where is my advisor?”
Possibly the only faculty member on campus who knows the details about why you went to the doctor, broke up with your boyfriend or did so bad on a test, is your advisor. Advisors and advisories are somewhat of a family atmosphere. This is the faculty member who is always there to help you regardless of what the matter is.
9. “Where is the faculty who helped me?”
Everyone has faculty members who they tell their friends at college about — could be a coach, or your freshman English teacher, even a dean. Sometimes it is someone who you have never even had a class with, but you connected over some common ground. Being able to see them makes a visit to campus so great.
Regardless of whether you swore you would never set foot on the campus again or cried until they forced you off campus after graduation, after four years as a student, coming back as an alum seems strange. Maybe over time, the strangeness of not being a student at the school that took up four years of my life will fade. For now, I will just wander campus looking for the people I care about to break rules that we had to listen to as students.
