Febs recount fond Midd memories

Author: Tommy Heitkamp and Leigh Arsenault

Frustrated with the speed of dial-up Internet access at home, I decide to drive the 20 minutes to campus to check my e-mail in the library. As I step out of my car, I hear a faint, unremitting yell coming from somewhere on campus. It's Feb. 7 and the new Febs are here. It's odd to think that only four days after my own graduation, the class of 2006.5 has been replaced by a crowd of young strangers. Strangers yes, but familiar enough - Febs are Febs, right?

On the walk from the parking lot, I pass students unpacking their cars with their families, trying to decide how useful a curtain rod might be in a dorm room. I can see my own mother, loaded down with unnecessary luggage checking, and then rechecking to make sure I have everything I need. And suddenly, four years ago doesn't seem so far away, at least not as far as it did four months ago.

I can attest to the uniqueness and excitement, not to mention the benefits, of being a Feb. As Scott Guenther so eloquently put it on Saturday, "we come later and last longer." We arrive a semester behind, in harsh conditions, both climatically and socially, and yet we flourish. I am not saying anything new - this is pounded into Febs from their inception to their dramatic exit on snow. What they don't tell you is how difficult super-seniordom can be. The final delayed semester is different for every Feb, and I can't speak for all of the Class of '06.5, what I do know is my own experience, which may or may not be what you want to hear.

Assimilation at Middlebury was never an issue for me. I made early connections in my own Feb class and the larger student body, which I maintained throughout my career. The hardest part of college for me was not the awkward first semester, but May of 2006, when I watched the majority of my closest friends graduate. During the spring semester I avoided sweating and stressing over job searches and graduate school plans. My thesis wasn't due and I didn't have to worry about my student loans kicking in like everyone around me. It's great to be a Feb in May. Come September, the tables had turned, and I found myself dragging my feet back to campus, in disbelief that I had to return. I was anxious going into my final semester, seeing redundancy and monotony in all of my school work and my social life. But what started as a general feeling of going through the motions resulted in the opportunity to replicate the intricacies of a Feb's first semester.

With the exit of most of my friends in May, I was left with no option other than to once again plunge myself into Middlebury's social network, branching out to meet new people. I still had many valuable connections and close friends on campus, but the absence of my core group of friends gave me the opportunity to pursue friendships with people I had too long neglected or had unfortunately bypassed altogether. At times I felt like a new Feb again, drifting in and out of social groups, latching on to intriguing characters I had met and spending the time to get to know them. I was like a first-year, excited about meeting new people, but not as awkward or self-conscious. I was given the opportunity to meet people on my own terms, based on my own interests and attractions, rather than forming a group of friends based on campus location or on class similarities. Let's be honest - most of us didn't graduate with the same group of friends as our first semester, anyway.

So, sitting now in a nameless library at a school where I am no longer a student, I feel that I have come full circle. Arriving late required me to branch out and to infiltrate a dynamic student body and leaving late forced me to experience the process all over again.

-Tommy Heitkamp


Each of my sisters and I were strapped into our assigned seats in the family minivan. As our car sped over the blind hills of Vermont we watched out the windows as the cows rolled in and out of view and the unfamiliar but easily identifiable smell of manure wafted under our nostrils. "Country!" my sister Kara and I shouted, laughing loudly. My oldest sister Missy sat in the back seat with her arms crossed and an agitated scowl on her face. She said she wanted a school in the country and a school in the country was exactly what she was going to get. This was 17 years ago and the first time I went on a tour of Middlebury College.

For better or for worse, there has been an Arsenault at Middlebury every year for the past 15 years. Being the youngest of four sisters, I watched as each left home and started her life as a Panther. I visited often, wide-eyed, exploring the dining hall where my love for chocolate milk, chicken parmesan and ice cream was satisfied. I attended their student recitals and admired their grown-up gowns that made them look so professional on stage. I went to hockey games where I could count on my team to win and it was rare that I was ever let down. For a kid, all of this seemed too good to be true. I knew my sisters were happy but I also knew there had to be more to this place. Nothing could be this perfect.

And I was right.

It was nearly ten years later and finally it was my turn to travel to college. Middlebury was the only place I could see myself, even though I had tried my best to fight it. I sent in my early decision application and everything turned out better than I hoped. That is, everything, except for one small detail - I was a Feb. Anyone familiar with Middlebury has heard the marketing for Febs before. We are outgoing leaders who will make the most of a few short months of independence and become easily integrated into the Middlebury community upon our arrival. I was skeptical of this ideology, besides, I was ready for college, and all the other Arsenaults were Regs. We were sisters. Who was Middlebury to tell me I was different - different from my own family, no less? This was a compliment? I was not convinced.

It's now five years after I first learned I was a Feb in the class of '06.5. My muscles are still sore from skiing down the slopes of the Bowl and my head is still spinning from the thought that I do not need to underline when I read (this is the largest realization I will allow myself to make, at this date anyway). I thought I knew everything about the place after experiencing Middlebury as a spectator for so many years. After being a student, I am surprised to understand that what I saw as a kid was not what made my sister's and I happy - that was all frosting. I leave Middlebury enriched with ideas, mentors and friends that have embedded themselves in my being. I leave Middlebury proud of my class and proud of the interesting and diverse ambitions we are ready to pursue. Febs are different, but they leave Middlebury with the same sense of community and pride, which every alumnus feels.

As I drove out of Middlebury the day after the "celebration," it was just my dad and I. This time I was behind the wheel. All of my belongings were rattling in the back seats of the van - the same seats that were once reserved for my sisters and me. Both of us were quiet because we knew how many times we had driven over these hills. No longer did the cows surprise us, and our noses were now immune to the smell of manure. It was just the smell of home. Dad and I both, I think, felt a sense of accomplishment. We had survived the ups and downs of Middlebury College and were ready for new places and experiences to explore.

-Leigh Arsenault