I didn’t want to go to a women’s college. As I applied for schools and received
my acceptance letters I was stuck deciding between two equally great schools,
neither of which appealed to me. In my mind I was screwed and convinced myself
to choose one and transfer after a year or a semester. I chose Bryn Mawr College because of
the two final options it was closer and freaked me out slightly less than the
other option. I spent part of my summer anxiously waiting what I had determined
would be an okay experience and I didn’t have high expectations of the
experience of college much less that of a women’s college.
It happened sometime in February my first year at Bryn Mawr.
When I fell in love. I fell in love with the people. I fell in love with the traditions. And most importantly I fell in love
with a community that I fit into and became a part of wholeheartedly. While I have never considered myself a
person of faith or destiny, I am beginning to believe that everything happens
for a reason, and that Bryn Mawr ‘happened’ for me.
Going to a women’s college means different things for
everyone. For some it means posting on the women’s
college problems tumblr. For others it means experimenting with
sexuality, breaking the bonds of our world that is undeniably
heteronormative. It means
repeatedly saying, “it’s not a girl’s
school, it’s a women’s college” to
your friends back home. For me, it
has meant those things to a certain extent, but more importantly it has
transformed me into a different person.
I have spent three years at the institution and I have become a more
thoughtful, more articulate, more confident, and more confused individual than
I have ever been before and it has been a wonderful experience. I would never trade my hours at Bryn
Mawr for any hour at a coed institution.
While I love Bryn Mawr for all the glories that I enjoy I don’t consider
myself a typical Bryn Mawr student, passionate about all the traditions, eagerly
chasing the norms down so that I can break them, and attempting to be as out of
the box as possible. Frankly I
spend the majority of my time either at the library, at the gym or talking with
my friends. All perfectly
acceptable things to do, but then, you might ask why do I love Bryn Mawr so
much? Why do I, the girl from
rural Vermont, raised by two very progressive intellectuals, then feel such a strong
love and admiration for the Mawr?
I love Bryn Mawr because of all the women. I love the environment both
academically and socially that not only supports us and pushes us to be the
best we can be, but also encourages us to be and to find who we are meant to
be. Isn’t that what college (any
college) is about? Finding
yourself and finding who you are “supposed to be” is supposed to happen in your
twenties I guess. I thought it happened when I was sixteen. That would have been early bloomer to
the extreme. And I’m glad that I’m
not the person I was when I was sixteen.
Bryn Mawr has made me a woman with self-respect for my person and the
work that I do. I have become a
more considerate person and I really good listener. I have also become a better talker, but that will hopefully
continue to improve with time. I
have learned to understand the importance of community. The Bryn Mawr community is one of the
most invaluable characteristics of my experience. It isn’t just about my friends that I’ve made here, but the
understanding that everyone who walks the hallways of Thomas Great Hall or the
cherry blossomed path has been through similar experiences that I have and
understands parts of me because we share something that has become a part of
us.
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