peer advisor

I live on routine. I like going to the same buildings, walking through the same halls, and doing the same activities on the same days. Yeah, I’m pretty boring. But routine is awesome. I could live my life in my sleep; I know all the twists and turns of every path I take to classes, and all the corridors in the buildings my classes are in. So when I have to go to a new building, I get nervous. It’s unfamiliar, and I don’t have a good sense of direction. I just know I’ll get lost, and I hate asking for directions. The Sunday before the first day of classes my freshman year, I went to all the buildings my classes would be in and found each classroom I’d have to go to, just so I wouldn’t be lost on my first day. No, that is not a tragic joke, such is my life. Basically, whenever I have a choice between a familiar and unknown location, I’ll always choose the familiar.

Which is why I didn’t study in Olin for the entirety of my freshman year. Not. Even. Once.

It’s ridiculous, I know, but I hated to set foot in the building. I was in a two-room double, so I had my own room to study in, and none of my classes ever required me to go and find a book. I was way more nervous about going to Olin than I was about any other Wes building. It’s just so big and imposing, and I was absolutely positive that I’d get lost and be doomed to wander the stacks forever. Or that I would be creeping through a quiet study room and my cell phone would go off, blasting my obnoxious ringtone and angering a horde of concentrating students who would then shoot me looks so withering that I’d just crumple in a heap on the floor. So you see, I thought about going to Olin, but I couldn’t imagine of a scenario that wouldn’t end in disaster.

I shared these thoughts with my mom, a Wes alum who actually lived in Olin when she was a student, back in the Mesolithic era . Naturally, she was dismayed that I couldn’t bear to enter her old home. She gave me a tip– to try and go at a time when the library would be empty, so I could wander around getting to know the layout without looking like a lost kid, and any cellphone interruption would infuriate the absolute smallest number of people.

So that’s what I did–during New Student Orientation my sophomore year, while I was training to be a peer advisor, I rode my bike to Olin during lunch. Naturally, it was empty. I went inside, and walked around for half an hour. I tried to imagine myself studying in the different rooms, and I just got to know the building. When my classes started few days later, I went back, found myself a desk, and did some homework.

That was two years ago. Now I’m a junior who’s so comfortable with Olin that I stroll on in to use the printers pretty much every day because I’m too lazy to plug in my printer and replace the cartridges. When you’ve only got four years on this campus, you’d have to be pretty silly to let any resource go to waste.