Coming to Terms With BU

Sometimes I think I regret coming to Boston University. I wistfully imagine what my life would be like if I went to a smaller school with a beautiful campus with sprawling green lawns and a football team. It’s not even that I particularly like football or dislike living in a city; it is that palpable feeling I get sometimes that something is missing.

Before choosing this school, I had heard the statistic that there were 30,000 enrolled students, but that number is pretty useless until you experience it. The vastness manifests itself in the passing of hundreds of anonymous faces every day and through the death of a BU student who I had never known or heard of before.

Michael DeVito, who was a 19-year-old sophomore in CAS, died last Thursday. My closest relation to him was that we both lived in South Campus and that maybe I attended a party at his fraternity once. It is at times like these that this school’s immenseness is hard to swallow.

I don’t think that I am alone in this desire for a cozier, more school-spirited college experience. In the past three years, I have met some amazing people here and have taken advantage of great classes and opportunities.

However, I still do not feel a connection to this school or get a sense of what BU stands for or what it means to me. This school was not my top choice (nor my last choice), but it presented a chance to get a good education in a great city.

While I do not know what it would take, or if it is even possible, to gain a sense of unity on campus, I had an experience Tuesday night that made things a little clearer.

I was at Boston College for an event and while wandering through the campus, I felt myself becoming jealous of their secluded campus and austere buildings. But then, something happened: on the way back to the B-line, I got lost on the campus. Completely, undoubtedly lost. After asking for directions several times I finally got back to the T where I was informed by a conductor that the last train of the night had left five minutes before.

So, on my forced cab ride to my apartment on Beacon, I gained a new appreciation for our mostly one-street city campus and school. It is not perfect, but we have all made the decision to be here and to call this place home for four years.

While it may seem obvious, I think that the fact that I, along with 30,000 students, have chosen to make this school our home is enough to satisfy my desire for a deeper connection with the school and students. Although we are splintered in a hundred different ways, we are all experiencing the same struggle to decide where to take our lives next and the joys in finding out.

Plus, it’s pretty hard to get lost when you are already home.