I've been on St. Olaf's campus less than twenty-four hours, and I'm already totally blown away. This campus is so strange, but in an awesome way. They all trust each other. Like, totally trust each other. Check out these facts that I wouldn't believe if I hadn't seen them myself:
1. No one locks their dorm rooms. Ever. Each door remains unlocked. For a comparison...at MSU we locked our laptops to our desks, and then also locked our dorm rooms. And I wasn't even just being paranoid...that's what everyone did.
2. Each student has a mailbox by the front desk, and none of them are locked.
3. When students go to the cafeteria, they leave their backpacks outside until they're done eating.
4. Erin had a test today, and the professors don't go to class on test days. They leave the tests, students pick them up and take them, and they're on the "honor system" to not cheat. When they're finished with the tests, they hand them in. That's it. No authority figures in the room at any point.
5. In the libraries and cafes, students frequently leave their laptops, purses, etc. on tables while they go walk around or even run back to their room to get something. I told Erin that's super strange, and she didn't get it. Why wouldn't people feel totally comfortable leaving their valuables out in the open around hundreds of college students?
6. There are community bathrooms on each floor, and each girl leaves her shower caddy with all of her shampoos, conditioners, loofahs, etc on the floor in the bathroom. When it's time to take a shower, she just grabs her caddy and uses it, then puts it back in the row with everyone else's.
6. We're going out to a fancy dinner tonight, and Erin couldn't find something to wear. She went into one of her friend's rooms (none of them are locked, remember?), and she grabbed a dress out of her closet. I was kind of surprised and said, "Shouldn't you ask...?" She replied, "No, all the girls on this floor just share clothes. We have an understanding about it, and we all use everyone else's stuff. It's like having one really huge closet! We just make sure everyone has their own stuff back at the end of the semester." Oh, okay. Because that's totally normal...
7. I asked Erin if there was ever any crime on campus. She said, "Not crime, exactly.....but campus security did send an e-mail warning us to be on the lookout for feral cats...." Stray cats are the biggest problem on this campus. WHOA - get me out of this unsafe location!
It's a really cool community...one that I would have bet doesn't exist on college campuses anymore. I hope it stays like that...but I also hope that the students don't think that real life is like that, because unfortunately, it isn't. :-(
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