Alma mater

I think that all universities provide some kind of connection between its students. What I mean by this is all of the students choose that school for a reason and that reason tends to bring out their similarities. If you choose to go to school in the deep south, you probably don’t mind southern accents or warmer temperatures. If you go to the University of Richmond you’re probably majoring in something like English lit or Political Science, not fine arts. The beautiful campus probably wasn’t the deciding factor for all U of R students, but I think they all have to agree having a campus on the top 20 list of most beautiful campuses (Princeton review) is something to be proud of. Belmont is known for its music majors like Harvard is for it's law students. LA film school is a pretty obvious one.

Community College is completely different in this way. Maybe I’m wrong but community college students are the most diverse you can get. My math class is kind of the epitome of this diversity. A women in her 60’s, an old, wise immigrant from Nigeria, a stay at home mom that came straight from the gym to class in her work out clothes. We’ve got a newlywed taking classes to advance her career and support her family and the guy who sits next to her everyday and thinks he has a chance with her. The hot shot who walks in fashionably late everyday and the kid in the front row who arrives at least 10 minutes early every day.

I sat down in that class one day and the 60 year old women came in with a Ravens shirt and her hair dyed bright purple. About 5 minutes later the hot shot walks in with a bright pink American Apparel hoodie. If you’ve ever seen the neon and metallic colors in American Apparel than you understand what I mean by BRIGHT pink. I believe the color is called Fluorescent Pink, not to be confused with regular pink. Anyways, that day in math class was very distracting. I’m getting distracted just describing it.

If you walk into the cafeteria at AACC you will find a table of students playing pokemon (which I didn’t realize still existed) and kids like me cramming for a few minutes before my next class. People sleeping or studying in the mini lazyboys in the CRSC building and drama students hanging around the CADE building just across the foot bridge. West Campus is full of the music majors and nursing students. It is also somehow “smokers hangout.” Seriously, I’m going to get lung cancer just from walking to my music classes.

When I started a community college I kind of assumed everyone was there for the same reason as me. Either they couldn’t afford a four year school or their plans just fell through. I never considered the fact that people willingly go there. People like to stay close to home, their jobs and the people they love. Women in their 60’s and stay at home moms want to make more of their time. They want to take the classes they never got the chance to take before. It’s refreshing.

I seem to talk about my college situation almost too much but it's sort of the one thing right now that I can really feel God's hand in. I mean, I know He is here with me through everything but I can really feel Him intervening when it come to my life at AACC.

All good feelings aside, I still refuse to put an "I am AACC" bumper sticker on my car. Never going to happen.