My First Semester in Sohn, Hillsdale’s New Dorm
Written by Lauren Smyth
Pink and dark green. That’s this year’s color theme. Blankets, a Noah’s Ark of stuffed animals, and round, fluffy pillows. Desk and chair under the bunk bed, creating a fairy-light-studded, plant-overrun cave for nighttime studying. A rug, a minifridge, and plenty of the college student’s staple: Food.
Just like that, the place becomes home.
At the beginning of the semester, Sohn Residence carries that new smell. The one that comes with new paint, new furniture, and new construction. The walls are soft gray and pristine, free from the scuffs and scratches that will carve our history into the walls. The Sohn girls haven’t made their mark yet, but there are plenty of stories to come.
On move-in day, we feel like pioneers—so certain we can turn this dormitory into a home that we’re willing to leave the cozy dorms we came from, with their fully formed personalities and communities, to try out the new place.
And when we walk in, we’re immediately convinced we’ve made the right choice. Thirty-foot ceilings arch over the entry. There’s a fireplace—a gas fireplace! Windows stretch from floor to ceiling, filtering end-of-summer sunlight. Each room has its own spacious, private bathroom. Everything’s new and fresh and exciting. We, the pioneers, have been richly rewarded for choosing a dormitory that was a plywood skeleton when we filled out our housing forms.
Somehow, the new residents all seem to know each other—probably because we’re all upperclassmen—which makes introductions and the first few days of cohabitation easy. We’ve all been through the moving process before and vaguely know which corner of the room we like to hang our ivy vines and band posters. We didn’t plan it this way, but some of my closest friends all happen to live next door and across the hall from my roommate and me. We help each other carry boxes up the three flights of stairs to the top floor, making jokes about how great our quads will look at the end of the semester.
On a chilly, early-fall day, the dormitory is dedicated. I can’t stay for the event—I’ve got a sinus infection (another college student staple) and an appointment with Health Services to get my nose patched up. But my parents are among the crowd, all present to pray over the new space and honor those whose names, effort, money, and time went into making the residence possible. So is Dr. Arnn. So is Marilyn J. Sohn, a long-time supporter for whom the dormitory is named (an idea brought to fruition by her husband, Kenneth, who’s been with her through thick and thin for almost 70 years). She tells my parents–and they later tell me–that she was delighted with the new dorm. Delighted, too, that it’s beautiful–because her name will be on the blue sign by the front door.
Right across from Sohn’s lobby is Penny’s coffee shop. So, on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, I roll out of bed to do my remote newswriting job, get partway through the first article, and decide it’s time for a break. Off to Penny’s, where my staple food is whipped up and handed to me: a vanilla latte, 2% milk. I could get used to this.
Several weeks have passed, and it’s almost my roommate Anna’s birthday. This is cause for much surreptitious planning. I make the trip to Chelsea, a small town where, oddly, they serve fantastic French food, and find the perfect gifts and a card. I clear my schedule and hover over her parents’ travel itinerary, which includes a long drive from her home state to whip up an enormous crockpot of gumbo. They arrive, and so do dinner and Anna’s friends from around campus. We colonize the kitchen and throw a bash.
Finals season rolls around, and thoughts of gumbo and birthday parties are temporarily forgotten. It’s crunch time. Blankets are washed in preparation for our campus-wide, semesterly hibernation. Lucky sweatshirts are drawn from the back of the closet. (Mine is a huge brown crewneck-blanket-bathrobe blend with a tiny mushroom embroidered over the chest.) Notebooks are filled and replaced. Pens run out of ink. Sohn falls quiet as everyone retreats to their study spot of choice.
I hop from place to place, determined not to let myself get bored by my surroundings. I spend several days in the library, poring over J.S. Mill with my History of Economic Thought class partner. I try out the student union, which is silent on Saturday mornings. But the best times are spent in Sohn, usually in the late afternoons and evenings. The kitchen table by the glass cutout that overlooks the three adjacent dorms and walking paths. The “viewing deck,” my roommate calls it, that overlooks the forest and gets a lovely view of the sunset. The “loft,” I call it, lined with an assortment of sofas, tables, and armchairs and framed by another enormous set of windows. Or, for intense focus, one of the brightly lit study rooms where I retreated throughout the semester for Zoom meetings, private meals, and phone calls.
Without ceremony comes the end of my first semester in the new new dorm.
It’s chilly the day I move out. I load up my car with assorted odds and ends I’ll be needing while I’m home in Florida. Sohn fades to a dot behind me as I scramble down the hill to the parking lot. I’ve left things all over the room. Pusheen, for example—my stuffed-animal cat who placidly plays video games and stares at me while I study. My computer screen. Some nonperishable food. Tons of clothes. Dishes. Almost everything I’ve been living with for the past four months, strewn about the room or tucked into drawers to give the illusion of neatness.
But I don’t worry about any of it. People don’t worry about things they’ve left at home, even when they know they won’t be back for a while.
And Sohn is my home. It belongs to me. It belongs to us, the first-timers, the friends who crashed on our sofas, the Friday-nighters who stream The Bachelor on lobby TVs, the finals season zombies who sprawl with their legs across the hallways. The unknown benefactor who pressed “restart” on the dryer when I had to leave in the middle of a load, the friend’s friend who borrowed my mattress, the baker who left cupcakes on the counter, the passers-by who vote on Anna’s and my “Professor Quote of the Week” poll. It belongs to everyone who’s been welcomed by these pretty, pristine, and slightly scuffed walls.
This is our home, and we know we’re coming back.
Lauren Smyth, ’25, is an economics major and journalism minor. Outside of starting arguments in philosophy class, she enjoys curling up on a bench outdoors (sun, rain, or snow) to write novels or articles for her blog, www.laurensmythbooks.com.
Published in March 2024