Helping the Juniors Transition into Gatton / What It’s Felt like Living with New People

I think I speak for almost every student at Gatton when I say that I was a weird mix of nervous and excited when the juniors started moving in. I was concerned they wouldn’t adapt to or positively add to the community my peers and I had created over the last year with our seniors. I was anxious that I wouldn’t be able to fill the shoes that my seniors left me. Most of all, I was anxious to get to know them all.

I would be lying if I said it didn’t feel weird to walk out into the common area on my floor and not see some of my closest friends out there studying, playing Guitar Hero, and creating some random business plan with a seed catalog, a business and marketing textbook, and a drone. I would also be lying if I said that it didn’t feel great to walk out there and see the common area filled with most of my floor gathered around the TV playing video games, watching some cop show, playing mafia, or playing our nightly game of Ninja tripping over the couches and chairs.

On my floor, we have started new traditions and inside jokes with our juniors. We’ve all gone to eat together and spent time in our common area. Outside of my floor, I see people hanging out and watching movies in the computer lab on 3rd or doing homework in the den on 4th. Every time I see a junior out and about on campus, we smile and wave at each other. It feels good to have that connection with them. When I walk around the building, I see seniors helping answer the junior’s questions about classes and life at Gatton. Overall, we are all doing our part to create the positive community that so many of us love to be a part of.

We make our own home here at the Academy, and I can say, without a doubt, these new “baby juniors” really have made our home one that is, although different, just as happy as I remember it last year. I truly look forward to the rest of my senior year with them.

Drew