As time moves on, these safe places help the university feel more like home
Every August, students make the move from their home bases to MU. For freshmen, this usually means moving away from home for the first time and learning how to live on their own. For the rest of the university, it’s returning to a place full of friends and memories.
Being away from the home that they grew up in forces students to find places on campus that help them call MU a second home. These places can be found everywhere and usually have some sort of emotional connection with students.
MU students have found ways to make campus their own in a myriad of ways. From connections with the people around them and their own hometowns to their hobbies, students have found places to make them feel safe and comfortable. These places have also helped them make MU a home away from home.
Students have been able to do this because a home can be more than just a physical location. Positive connections and relationships help students find places where they can insert themselves and curate a space that, to them, feels comforting and homely.
Lynn Eckhardt, a senior at MU, has found a second home in her sorority house. Eckhardt’s Sigma Kappa sorority sisters have helped make the house a positive place for Eckhardt to retreat to when needed.
“Whenever you go there, everyone’s happy to see you and there’s always someone that’s going to stop and chat with you,” Eckhardt said. “And then I just like to nap on the couch there, and there’s snacks there. Just feels quite homey.”
Nevertheless, Eckhardt didn’t immediately feel like MU was a place that she could fully call home. She acknowledges that it takes time to build those types of connections and comfortability.
“I feel like it definitely took a couple of months for me to feel that way,” Eckhardt said. “It just takes time to adjust to a new space.”
Every student creates a place for themselves in a different way, and for some students, the best way to do that is by bringing a piece of their hometown with them — whether that’s by bringing physical aspects of home or just routines and habits.
George Frees, a junior at MU, brought his own plants to bring a slice of his home with him. His plants now reside in the MU greenhouse and Frees continues to care for them.
“I literally brought a piece of my home with me when I came here,” Frees said. “[The greenhouse is] somewhere where I can work with my hands and take a step away from all the schoolwork, and I can take some time to be alone.”
Frees increased his time spent in the greenhouse near the end of his freshman year and the beginning of his sophomore year. This helped him feel more comfortable in the space and leave more of his own mark.
“[My comfortability] developed as I made the space more my own and took on more responsibility within the greenhouse, and it just started to feel more like home,” Frees said.
Another way students have brought home with them to MU is by continuing the same habits and routines that they did in their own hometowns. Zoie Evans, a freshman at MU, did this by maintaining her habits of studying at the Starbucks in Memorial Union.
“Sitting in the Starbucks doing work is kind of what I would do at home,” Evans said. “It just feels like a nice place to relax.”
Evans has been finding that place to just relax and be productive, while also adding in the factor of homeliness. To her, finding a place that feels like home is the easiest way for her to feel connected to that place.
“It has similar characteristics to a place you already call home,” Evans said. “And it just makes you feel comfortable and safe.”
Edited by Annie Goldman | agoldman@themaneater.com
Copy edited by Sterling Sewell | ssewell@themaneater.com
Edited by Scout Hudson | shudson@themaneater.com