Opinion | One surprising thing I will miss most about Chapman
Mady Dever, Opinions Editor
I’ve always considered myself someone who makes things work. I try to make the best of every situation, despite how unfortunate it may be. And that’s exactly how I’ve managed this past year. I always found ways to make it all feel OK.
I’ve made online classes work because they allow me to do school from anywhere. I’ve replaced commute time with sleep. I’ve found peace with long emails and FaceTime catch-ups.
But after a brief return to the Orange campus last week, I realized there was one element I didn’t think I would miss, or had ever even thought about when I was in-person — the smell of the air, the atmosphere and really just being there.
I joined a single in-person class last week as a final goodbye to my thesis class. It was so exhilarating to be in the same room as these people I’d spent the entire year with on Zoom. Simultaneously, I was deeply saddened because this would be my first and last senior-year class.
I made the drive from Los Angeles to Orange County and on my walk down Glassell Street after passing my COVID-19 test, I noticed something. Something that hadn’t stuck out to me before.
The wind was blowing softly in my face and brought with it a sense of unexpected comfort like a baby blanket wrapped around my shoulders. I smelled familiar trees I couldn’t tell you the names of and dry, dusty Santa Ana wind.
I made it to the Palm Avenue and Glassell Street crossing and heard the digital crossing guard once again: “Wait. Wait. Wait. Walk sign is on for all crossings. Walk sign is on for all crossings.” I know you all read that with his voice in your heads.
I passed by Bruxie and the smells of fried chicken filtered their way through the air along with the restaurant’s always-entertaining playlist: the best yet worst mix of 2000s rock and modern pop.
Heading down Palm Avenue, I passed by the man who always sits on his porch, and I received a wave as I always have since freshman year. Honestly, I had always wondered how this man had so much time to relax on his porch and greet college students, but now he feels like an animatronic on a nostalgic Disneyland ride.
The moment I entered Marion Knott Studios is when everything hit. The smell of the building was exactly the same as when I first stepped through those doors my freshman year. It’s extremely clean, and though constructed 15 years ago, the aroma of drywall, new carpet and fresh paint still linger, accompanied by hints of paper reams and movie seats.
I walked down the hallways, reminiscing about each room I took a class in. My first class at the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts was in room 119, where I met my best friends and wrote my first scripts. Room 126, the small, windowless — practically storage — room where I shared laughs. The Folino Theater, where hours and hours of movies were watched and some slept through (guilty). The printer room where I rushed to print my final script, only to have printing malfunctions and lack of brads to bind the pages. There was camaraderie built between students out of printer desperation.
And my last class of senior year, coincidentally, took place in the same room I had first entered at Dodge College, where I listened to a panel of screenwriting professors during welcome week. My time here was tied up in a bow like the end of a good movie.
After my class that night, it was late. Having so many 7 p.m. to 9:45 p.m. class time slots, night has become my favorite time to be at Dodge College. The building is so quiet and peaceful. The parking lot is near-empty except for my car, the same one that got me through roughly 30,000 miles-worth of drives to class since freshman year.
I stood in the humid night and stared back at the building, lit up among orange street lights and lamp posts scattered around the entrance. Something about it felt so eerie — an abandoned hub of education soon to be reunited with students in the fall. But I'll be long gone. I snapped a final photo to capture the moment — but then again, I couldn’t capture the smell of the damp pavement, the feel of the warm, Orange night air or the sounds of peaceful silence.