Vassar College has returned to life after the first full week of classes back from spring break. One week ago today, campus looked very different with students out on vacation and only a few staying behind. I wanted to know how people identify their home— where is home for Vassar students? I set out to ask Vassar students to identify where their “home” is by talking about their spring breaks.
I first met with a sophomore here at Vassar in the 24-hour section of the library, the week before break where people sat huddled around orange tables and chatted about their homework, completing review sheets and pre-labs. In the final stretch of midterms week, the energy was tired but still high. She wore a gray shirt with burgundy letters on it spelling “Vassar Brewers.” I asked her if she was excited to go home for break and where she would be.
“I’m very excited to go home for spring break. I’m from Hillsborough, New Jersey, so not too far.” She closed her laptop, on which she was working on problem sets for her physics homework. With a sigh, she explained that she was definitely excited for the end of the work cycle, as we were in the midst of midterms, so going home was something to look forward to. I asked her if she felt more at home here on campus or at her house in New Jersey. She thought for a moment and glanced at her friends sitting beside her. “My home is in Hillsborough because I spent my whole life there. It’s comfortable and familiar. This place feels temporary because nothing is mine. The room isn’t mine, I’m just using it. But my home is here in terms of the people.”
Here at Vassar, she feels like there is a clean slate to figure out who you actually are. “When I want to come ‘home’ to Vassar, it’s because of my friends and experience that I get from being here, not so much about the place.” She stressed the idea that this kind of freedom comes with moving to a new place where no one knows you, but especially somewhere individuality is encouraged. Difference is encouraged, and everyone is trying to figure out who they are. She continued to sit in the 24-hour section after our brief interview to finish her physics homework. She had one midterm on Friday and was planning on driving back to New Jersey immediately after.
Outside the library, I met with a second student. He was also a sophomore. He had his folders out on the bench beside him, reviewing for his pre-lab in Experimental Psychology. He was preparing to perform surgery on a mouse he had been taking care of in the lab. His pink highlighter smelled sharply of chemicals as he underlined all of the steps. I asked him about where he feels at home, and how he is feeling about spring break. “Super excited to go back to Scituate, Massachusetts, but I will miss my home away from home.” Scituate is a suburb of Boston, where he has lived his entire life. “I formed much stronger relationships with people here than I ever did at home, but I can’t be at home anywhere that my family isn’t.”
He stressed that his sense of community growing up was entirely a result of his parents, who made his childhood safe and welcoming for him and his brother. The community of Sciutate itself was less influential. His experience at Vassar was totally new in terms of what his external community looked like. “I had essentially only gone to school with white kids before I left Scituate.”
Some have only experienced uniformity before leaving for Vassar, while others have known nothing but change. The third student I met with has moved every three years since he was born. I asked him about spring break and where he was headed. “Yes, I am excited to go back. I’m going to New Delhi, India.” He has lived in New Delhi for the past two years with his parents and his younger sister. I asked him if he felt that was going ‘home’ to New Delhi. “Moving around a lot, home to me was always where my family was, where my dogs were. In that sense, I’ll be going ‘home’ to my family for break. But Vassar has been much more of a physical home.” He lives on the third floor of Main with two roommates. For those with a more stationary childhood, the physical campus at Vassar is not the part of it that makes it a home; relationships and friends make the environment—not the buildings or the dorms.But for this student, those are exactly what make Vassar a home. “This is all familiar to me. Eating breakfast at Retreat, that’s something that feels very home to me. Home is where family is, but I have family here too now.” When he graduates, he will have lived at Vassar for longer than he has ever lived anywhere else.
There is one week until spring break for students at Vassar, and students are buzzing with excitement to leave campus. But not everyone is headed home. There is a liberating appeal to the absence of our friends and families at college. Even when our relationships are strong, and their presence is missed, we are enabled to embrace new personalities and passions when we are not surrounded by the people who molded us. It is not a betrayal of their creation when we stray from the path. Home can mean many things for us, but when we graduate and move on from this place, our home is permanently changed. How do we define home when it is constantly changing?