Last week, I had the opportunity to listen to Professor Blalock discuss the early structure of West Campus as well as take us on a tour to see various locations in Becker House which turned out to be turned out to be secrets passageways to Rose House. Learning about the history of all the give houses, and how they’ve evolved to give many students a community they can call “Home” at Cornell was very interesting to me.  Being a transfer, I deeply appreciate the arrangement of the House structure as it has allowed me to foster many new friendships and has made my transition to Cornell a lot easier.  I believe that Cornell’s interconnected building structure is symbolic of the interconnected shared experiences that all people living on West Campus have. In fact, I’ve found that this shared interconnectedness between all the houses is the reason I have been able to make so many friends here and is thus a popular place for transfer students to live in.  Living in the Main House, I never realized how close our Gothic neighbours are as I have usually just visited all the main houses and missed the beauty of the Gothics. In particular, it was interesting for me to see the War Memorial room and learn about the history surrounding the room because this room is not usually open to students and had it not been for this day, I would not have been able to see and appreciate the beautiful and unique aspects of Rose House.  I often find myself not stepping out of my room nearly as often as I would like to explore the sights surround Rose House since due to the stress of school it can be easy to forget how grateful I am to be able to get to live in this community.

My biggest takeaway from this experience was understanding how the Housing system’s culture and creation in history have contributed to the unique community it holds for students. I learned that all the buildings in West Campus are the only buildings that are not named after wealthy donors, which I believe shows how this community is passionate about reinforcing equality and shared interconnectedness between students. Overall, this discussion was eyeopening to me about the views that are right around me which I plan to take advantage of and reminded me of how the unique structure of this community has contributed to my happiness at Cornell.