Si Ting Chen

This past weekend, I fled Bowdoin’s blizzard conditions for the warm embrace of my sister and the city of Los Angeles. What began as a desperate attempt to outrun the isolation of Brunswick quickly became an escape from the winter monotony of Bowdoin: breakfast, class, Smith, class, dinner, H-L, repeat. When the most exciting part of my week had become a trip to Target, I decided it was time for a getaway.

When I arrived at Los Angeles International Airport, I felt the sun I had missed so desperately for months. As my Uber crawled through quintessential Los Angeles traffic, I found myself questioning my college decision. My sister, a senior at a liberal arts institution similar to Bowdoin, lives a vastly different version of college life. While I brace myself before going outside for six months of the year, layering leggings under my jeans, she sunbathes before class with the city at her fingertips. As the car rolled to a stop outside her dorm, I wondered what had led 17-year-old me to choose the tundra over the City of Angels.

Over the course of the weekend, I slipped into an alternate version of myself—the one who had never chosen Bowdoin. I attended class, ate in the dining halls, studied in the library, showered in her dorm and went out with her friends. Gallivanting around the city, I took full advantage of the luxuries of an urban campus. Sipping a $17 smoothie from Erewhon, my sister and I wandered through Griffith Park, Beverly Hills and Malibu. I was quickly enveloped by the flashy perks of city college life. I didn’t feel like a student so much as a 20-something living in Los Angeles, free and independent, untethered from the boundaries of a traditional campus.

But something was missing: community.

Walking through my sister’s dining hall, I was struck by how empty it felt—and by how many students were eating alone. At Thorne or Moulton, you can walk in solo and almost always end up sitting with someone you know or someone you’re about to know. Visiting my sister, there seemed to be a noticeable absence of campus culture. My sister explained that most students went off campus not just for meals but for nearly everything else. Instead of campus parties, students went to clubs. Instead of lingering on the quad or playing a board game in someone’s room, they dispersed into the city for entertainment.

The things I love most about college—the small side quests around campus, the moments of laughter in Smith, the two-hour dinners surrounded by new friends—didn’t exist in the same way. The quiet bonds forged between students, whether splitting an Uber to the airport or ending up next to each other in downward dog at Monday night yoga, felt fleeting there. At Bowdoin, those moments accumulate; there, they seemed to dissipate.

I recently took a high school senior who was considering Bowdoin on a tour of campus. As is my wont when I get nervous, I just jabbered on and on about anything and everything Bowdoin related. However, I found myself coming back to one thing: the people. I couldn’t stop gushing about how much I loved my friends, my roommates, my professors, but also the unexpected relationships, those with the librarians, the dining hall workers and the random Brunswick residents.

My college experience has been defined by these unlikely friendships. The clearest example is my first-year floormates—a ragtag group with seemingly nothing in common. From San Diego to Long Island, this group came together on the second floor of Coleman Hall in August 2024 and has been inseparable ever since. Nearly every night, like clockwork, we gathered in someone’s room to talk about our days, laugh at ridiculous videos or simply sit together while we worked. I don’t know if that group would have ever come together outside the Bowdoin bubble. But within it, those friendships became foundational—and reminded me that sometimes, the cold comes with something warmer in return.

While I waited at my gate for my flight home, I found myself excited to return, even if it meant trekking through the snow to class. My journey to Los Angeles, while initially in pursuit of sunshine and Sweetgreen, reminded me of why 17-year-old me chose this version of myself, the one that went to Bowdoin.

Erin Jones is a member of the Class of 2028.