During the cherished 60 minutes after check-in but before “floor hours,” many cherubs gathered in the Jones Hall communal spaces to talk with friends, work on assignments and even compete in poker.
For Madison Kane of Long Island, New York, talking with her friends in the lounge on her floor was a great way to bond at night, especially after a long day of lectures, workshops and reporting assignments.
“I feel like, to form deeper, long-lasting relationships, it’s so important to tell stories about ourselves and our lives back home,” Kane said. “I think a lot of people find comfort in the vulnerability, but also humor of it all.”
One group gathered in the fourth-floor lounge every night to compete in an ongoing poker game.
“At night when we are winding down from class, it’s really nice to spend time with others and get competitive,” Surya Patil of Los Angeles said. “We play cards and poker in teams, which has become a cherished routine to help us bond with our friends.”
Other lounges were quieter, with some cherubs preferring to work over joining in on poker. For them, writing with others provided the perfect balance between socializing and finishing assignments.
“It’s hard for me to sit alone in my room and grind out my articles,” Eliza Goldwasser of Park Ridge, Illinois, said. “The lounge is a communal space where people come and go, so it’s nice to sit and work with those you might not see otherwise during the day. Checking AP style, talking out what a sentence might sound like or bouncing ideas off one another is a great opportunity in the lounge.”
The dorm’s version of a living room gave cherubs a “common ground,” Kane said. “It’s not the dorm room, but it’s not a school building. So we get the best of both worlds.”
