To me, one of the most important things about St. Mike's is the community. This community is hard to understand if you haven't experienced it, but in the past few weeks I have had two strong reminders of how amazing the St. Mike's community really is...
The first took place last weekend when I went down to New Boston, NH to visit my close friend from St. Mike's, Heather. Heather went on the service trip to Kentucky with me and was also in my business class, so even thought we've only known each other for one semester, we have become really close friends. Heather and I had been planning this trip ever since we returned from Kentucky because we purchased tickets to the Counting Crows/Maroon 5 concert at the Tweeter Center in Mansfield, MA. We made plans with one of Heather's roommates from St. Mike's, Katie, because she lives in Mansfield. Even though I had only met her once, Katie and her family welcomed me into their home and Heather and I spent a good portion of the day before the concert with Katie's family. This gesture reminded me of how much the St. Mike's community means - even thought I didn't really know Katie or her family, because we are both part of this community, they welcomed me and we quickly all became friends. Katie's mom made us a delicious dinner before the concert, her twin sister Erin scrounged around for rain gear for us (because the weather outlook for the concert was not great) and the rest of her family was just really warm and welcoming. Katie took us to and from the concert and then we spent the night with her afterwards. I had an amazing weekend, mostly because of Heather, Katie and both of their families. This quick taste of the SMC community made me excited to get back on campus in a few weeks!
The second reminder took place when I was vacationing with my family in Portland, ME this past week. We stayed in Old Orchard Beach, but took a trip up to Portland to do some shopping. I happened to be wearing my St. Mike's sweatshirt (because there is rarely a day that I don't wear something with "Saint Michael's College" written on it!) and a complete stranger stopped me to ask if I went to school at SMC. I replied that I did, and we talked for several minutes about when he had graduated, our respective majors (Journalism for him, English for me) and how much we loved it. I've never seen this sort of spontaneous conversation spring out of another college's apparel, so I think this shows that the people at St. Mike's love their school and love to talk about it with each other and everyone else.
Even though you can't fully understand the St. Mike's community until you have experienced it, I think that both of these examples shed some light on what it is like to be a part of it - it is caring, genuine and really fun!
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