The struggles of going to school on a large campus
‘Appreciate that your furthest class is a five minute walk’ – All of Orchard Hill
As a large campus with an undergraduate student body of over 22,000, we are definitely a large school.
We have many spectacular advantages including an array of activities, programs, and connections.
However, along with all these fantastic amenities there are also the true struggles of a huge university.
You have to leave your dorm an hour early to get to class
That 8am you signed up for means leaving your dorm at 7am just to walk across campus in time.
On the bright side, we have buses that run every fifteen minutes. . . so long as you don’t mind getting too close for comfort with strangers every morning, clenching your Grab’n Go coffee tightly while people attempt to squeeze themselves through the outdated PVTA door.
Getting a spot in the library is like a hunting expedition
OK, you’re done with class and want to be a ‘good’ student. You walk over to Du Bois and look up at the tallest library in the US before spending 20 minutes on the elevator hoping to find an open study spot.
The gym is always packed
Now that you’ve finished your homework for the day, you pretend to be an athlete at the gym. It’s still January and everyone is in the ‘new year, new me‘ vibe, so the rest of campus has joined you.
You walk back and forth a few hundred times trying to find an open treadmill and burn off that freshman fifteen. Meanwhile, you realize that you walked instead of rode the bus to class today. That’s enough of a workout, right?
Getting a table for dinner is like The Hunger Games
Alright, everyone’s favorite time of the day: dinner. After this long, tumultuous day, you find yourself at Berk excited to indulge in your favorite foods. You look around to realize you have been accompanied by what seems like all of Southwest.
After walking around what feels like a hundred times you’re forced to awkwardly stand and wait for people who look ‘close to done’ hoping to snag their table before the basketball players.
If you live in Southwest, quiet hours do not exist
Whether you walk around Southwest at 3:30pm or 3:30am, you are sure to pass at least a few hundred kids out and about… Whether they are sober or not is up to your discretion.
Sometimes the people you start the night with are not who you end it with
At a large school like UMass, yeah… we like to party. Sometimes the friends who you left with are not the same people who end the night at Antonio’s with you: “Where the hell did my friends go and who the hell are all these people?” It’s reminiscent of when you were little and lost your mom in the middle of the grocery store.
‘I’ll meet you at the game’ does not exist
If you think you’re going to run into someone or attempt to meet up at a sporting event, good luck my friend. Maybe our teams aren’t the best, but we are a D1 school and I can assure you we have school spirit.
From the thousands of people filling the Mullins Center to the hundreds of drunk students swarming Lot 33 for tailgates. . . be sure to make previous arrangements if you’re trying to meet someone at the next game.
Yes, the struggle is real. But I love my school. I just hope students at small schools appreciate their furthest class being 5 minutes away the next time they oversleep.
That being said, there is a huge downside about attending a small school: it’s just not UMass.