Eliza Goldwasser of Park Ridge, Illinois, was caught off-guard as she encountered construction work on her way to Sargent dining hall. She wound through the paths on campus, with Google Maps as her only guide to getting to dinner.
“I didn’t figure out the route where you take Sheridan until four days in,” Goldwasser said. “Sargent was really far away, and sometimes I didn’t know whether I should go left or right.”
The walk to Sargent was definitely a time commitment, but also a great opportunity for cherubs to get familiar with the Northwestern campus. Students were served food at Allison dining hall starting the second week, a shorter and easier journey.
“Once it took me 45 minutes to get to the Sargent dining hall because I did a big circle,” said Celina Lee of Palo Alto, California. “I am grateful that we now eat at Allison.”
Off campus, cherubs referred to Google Maps when venturing through unfamiliar territory.
“I tried to use Google Maps in Chicago to get to the place we were meeting and it fully took me in the wrong direction,” said Josie Belfer of San Mateo, California. “I wanted to get out of the mall and had to ask a person who was working at an art exhibition where the door was. Apparently it was right behind me. Google Maps did me dirty!”
Belfer said that Google Maps doesn’t know about all of the “hacks and shortcuts” on campus. “It always wants to take you down Sheridan road,” she said. The second week in, Belfer had a pretty good sense of how to get around. She no longer was attached to the Maps.
Joshua Singer of Rockville, Maryland, said navigating Evanston was pretty easy for him because it has a similar layout to a town near him at home.
“Even though I have a pretty good sense of direction, I still used Google Maps just to make sure,” Singer said. “You don’t want to look stupid.”
At the end of the program, he only used Google Maps to get to places he’d never been.
“I can get to Target, I can get to Chipotle, I can get to Insomnia Cookies,” he said.
Ivy Frater of Chicago said that, even though she still uses Google Maps, she can get to Target, Starbucks and Coldstone — the “essential spots” — all by herself.
“You make a lot of friends when you go downtown,” said Celina Lee of Palo Alto, California. “Everyone works so hard here. It feels good to take a break and get some drinks or ice cream. It happens almost every night, we get something and then go to the beach. It’s really a bonding experience, especially now that we know where everything is.”
After three weeks, Avani Shah-Lipman of Berwyn, Pennsylvania, no longer had to use Google Maps on campus. Even so, for better or for worse, Google Maps remained an inseparable part of navigating town.
“You will see me staring at my phone and walking around in circles until my little beam of light matches the path I’m supposed to take,” Shah-Lipman said.
