As a senior, I am an expert in all things Connecticut College. I know the best route for biking to Quaker Hill (take Gallows Lane to Bloomingdale Road on the way out and come back on Old Norwich Road/Williams Street) and that my favorite study space is an Olin Science Center computer lab affiliated with the Ammerman Center for Arts and Technology, in which I am a student scholar. I also realize my familiarity with my College whenever I open a tab while browsing the Internet on a school computer, which I do quite often, as it immediately directs me to this website: www.conncoll.edu.

At this point, looking at www.conncoll.edu, I can recognize so many people and campus locations that I’ve interacted with or visited as a student. I have a sense that I didn’t have four years ago when deciding to attend college here: that this website is not just a series of photographs of apparent college students, but true documentation of the campus and people that are Connecticut College. If I go to the homepage and search for “theater,” under the list of areas of study, I see a photo of our 2016 production of “Carousel,” which is a nostalgic reminder of my time as principal clarinetist in that production’s pit orchestra. Navigating to a page about the Arboretum shows a photo that includes Ramzi Kaiss ’17, who was Student Government Association President during the 2016-2017 academic year; I interviewed him once for an article in The College Voice. Clicking on the residential life link under the navigation tab leads me to the same photo of a tiny double room that I saw four years ago when deciding to enroll at the College, which as a student I’m now aware is probably one of the 10 smallest double rooms on campus! There are even some amusingly outdated photos, like the aerial cover photo on The Experience blog’s home page, which shows Shain Library pre-renovation.

After four years at this institution, our website has a very different meaning to me from when I was a senior in high school. It’s a place I can look at and see a reflection of my experience here. As I’m preparing to graduate, viewing this site is a reminder of what the words alma mater mean to me: this was a place where I grew into a better person, where so much of who I am as a young adult has originated. I know in the future, wherever I am, I can always at least come back to www.conncoll.edu and remind myself of what I and others have experienced and continue to experience as we learn to become successful, kind and caring members of our world.