Finding that "Welcome Back" High

Author: Daniel Roberts

I have been back on campus for two days, and already everyone is completely high. It's not from what you would think (though I definitely smelled some strong 'plants' in Gifford last night). The high is a mellow feeling that spreads over the campus like a blanket, intensifying as more students return to Midd by Jeep or jumbo jet. It is a warm, excited friendliness. And it is very infectious.

Everywhere you look, kids seem genuinely happy to be back in school. Sure, for some that may just be a "Tonight at the Mods I'm going to fall all over myself" smile, or others might just be elated to finally leave Mom and Dad's house again. But most of these grins and high-fives reveal an actual joy at the prospect of a new school year. This is probably a surprising emotion for many.

It is certainly a strange feeling to be back on campus, whether you have only been gone for the summer or if it is been a longer absence. Sometimes the summer can seem so absurdly long that by the end of August, the promise of returning to school feels almost surreal. You cannot figure out whether you have been free for so many months that you are itching to get back, or if the prolonged break has completely killed your motivation to work hard at anything, so you are dreading it.

In my case, I haven't set foot on campus since last December because I was abroad. While driving up here (desperately seeking through gaps on the radio dial in search of actual music), I realized that pretty much half of the kids on campus this year would be strangers to me: new first-years, last year's Febs, and most of this year's sophomores. I anticipated feeling like a phantom at my own college.

But then I pulled up, saw familiar faces all over, and remembered the welcome back high. We all know it. You get a big hug from that guy you sort of forgot was a friend of yours last year, or maybe an oddly huge smile from the girl you had that one stats class with and barely know. Everyone seems to want to say "Hi."

The funniest aspect of social psychology at play here is the fact that in many cases, you might get one of these warm greetings from someone whom you don't even like very much, and you're pretty sure that they are both aware of this and feel the same way. But who cares? It's the first week back, and we're all in the same boat. And that boat just happens to be a gorgeous, lush (it rained like hell this summer) college campus, tucked away in rural Vermont, where no one from home-not Aunt Susan, not Mr. Goldberg from the law firm you interned at, not that waitress you dated for a week in July-can get to you. At Midd we find a true community-and I use that word without irony, although I know it's usually seen on fliers for activist groups or e-mails from the Abroad office.

Everything is fresh again. You are moving into a new room (maybe even greeted by some interesting news, like-surprise!-Forest rooms have no lighting!), eating in a new dining hall (Freeman, anyone? No?) and maybe even discovering some new buildings (damn, that Axinn thing is a palace). All around us are people, places and scenery that feel both new and comfortingly familiar. You feel some nostalgia, maybe a little anxiety (if you are a first-year in the massive social melting pot we call Battell), and great anticipation of what's to come this year. It's kind of a sensory overload.

We'll see what the collective student body looks like in six or seven weeks, when papers are looming and summer feels like it happened so long ago. You'll hear pathetic whimpers coming from library cubicles, and a long, drawn-out, "I knoooooow, same!" every time someone in the dining hall bitches about all the reading they have to do. You'll see the huddled Eskimo clans of cigarette smokers, who stand in front of the library rubbing their bare arms, and stomp snow off their sneakers before coming back inside. The campus will feel like a different world from the one we eagerly returned to in September.

But for now, it's all smiles. The weather is in that perfect, pre-fall balmy state, students are actually excited about their classes (just a tiny bit, right?) and everything is new again. And so it feels damn good to be back. We'll see how long that lasts.