Finding My Community at Carnegie Mellon

My entire college life changed because of air conditioning. To explain, I’m sure most people have heard of the butterfly effect before. It’s an idea that states a seemingly unimportant decision or event can change the entirety of someone’s life trajectory. I have personally experienced my own butterfly effect here at Carnegie Mellon during my freshman year living in Hammerschlag house.

I never made a huge group of friends in high school, but I knew things had to change when I came to college. I was ready to find a community, but I was so nervous to start my whole life over. Late August rolled around and found me in an oddly named first-year, communal residence hall called Hammerschlag. Other than the fact that there was an open roof called the “Sch-roof,” a kitchen called the “Schitchen” and a large lounge called the “Schlounge” (well, you get the joke), I had no idea what to expect. What was also unexpected was a major heat-wave in Pittsburgh during the first few weeks of orientation, and we did not have air conditioning in our rooms.

The one saving grace was that the Schlounge was fully blasting air conditioning all hours of the day. This led to most residents spending an exorbitant amount of time sitting in the Schlounge to keep cool. Since everyone was always in the Schlounge, everyone got to know each other exceedingly well over games of ping pong and movies. I had an instant built-in community that I got to go home to every day. As it happens, I’ve been coming home to that same group of friends for the past three years.

One of the ways we’ve maintained our close bond as friends is through traditions. Every single year, we host a Secret Santa party where we prove how well we know one another through gag-gifts and handmade trinkets. In order to celebrate our finals being over we go to Kennywood, a Pittsburgh amusement park, to have one last group outing before we leave each other for the summer. One of the most important traditions, however, are birthdays. Though our friendship as a group is wonderful, it's important to us that we celebrate each other individually. Every single person in our friend group gets their birthday celebrated through something like dinner, mini-golf, karaoke, painting, etc. Three years later, I still call this group of people my best friends. Although Hammerschlag is getting renovated to have a whole new lounge and air conditioning in every room, I’m sure freshmen will be able to make their own community for years to come.