When I first started at Chatham University, I was truly just happy to get out of my rural hometown. I always felt suffocated at home, and once I got to Chatham, I felt like I could breathe. No one judged me for pretty much anything, which was vastly different to what I had at home. Not to mention, the best part about leaving your hometown for a whole new area is you get to leave your old self behind and become somebody new: somebody who isn’t subject to small town ideals, somebody you were afraid to be but now feel accepting toward.
Chatham University is a great place for finding yourself. Although it’s a very small community, it’s also an accepting one. At least if you get bullied at Chatham, they call you by the right pronouns.
However, in spite of the fact that Chatham is in its own little bubble with an abundance of squirrels and an alarming amount of deer, some aspects of Chatham are not so charming. I soon found out that it really didn’t matter who I was or who I tried to be. At the end of the day, at the end of my four years here, I still never quite fit in with the crowd.
In spite of this chronic sense of loneliness and not ever belonging, a lot of things kept me hostage and prevented me from transferring or withdrawing. A few good things outweighed the bad, and at that point, I prioritized that over my mental health.
Of course, I didn’t feel great here, but I would be graduating with a degree. Of course my mental health doesn’t matter, only that impending sense of failure for leaving a school I put so much time into.
I genuinely enjoyed my major and had a decent workload that was never quite overwhelming until my last few semesters. I also felt I was actively learning things in every class and that it better prepared me for the uncertain future.
I stayed because of my major, and I also stayed for the few good relationships I had fostered here.
I often think about my first roommate and how her time at Chatham turned out. We lived in Dilworth Hall together, but she, unlike me, genuinely hated it here. She transferred after the end of our first year, and I’m happy to say she’s partying it up at West Virginia University, and she’s right where she wants to be. I envy her, and I think about that all the time.
How would I have been elsewhere? Would a bigger school do me any better? Would I actually feel happy? Would I actually feel welcomed? Would I finally feel human? I have no idea, and now I’m never going to know..
So to anyone who is reading this, and you feel something off here, and you believe that deep down in your heart that this isn’t what you want, you need to listen to your heart. You can go. You have free will. If you feel even the smallest inkling of, ‘I really need to transfer,’ then, by Jove, transfer. You can always leave.
At the end of the day, it’s all about you and how you feel, and I wish someone had told me that it was OK to care about myself and put myself above everything else.
If you still aren’t really familiar with who I am, I don’t really mind, but I hope after reading this you think better of me, and I encourage people that don’t feel at home here to put themselves forward and try to make lasting connections. But if that doesn’t work, and you really don’t feel like you’re a good fit here, whether it be because of the curriculum or social scene, you can go.
I always kind of felt like how Shrek felt in “Shrek 2” when he’s walking down to meet Fiona’s parents. He felt all those eyes, all that judgement.
No one ever really tried to know the real Shrek. They looked at him and made assumptions. I am Shrek. Maybe you’re Shrek. You don’t have to be Shrek. You can be whoever you want to be, and don’t let Chatham ever stop you.
