Coming Home

I found out about Clark in probably the one of most unorthodox ways possible. My dad's at-the-time girlfriend worked at Clark, specifically with the international students:  their applications, their visas, their financial aid, and their adjustment to life at Clark. I even remember reading some of the the international students' applications when I was a ninth grader.

Fast forwarding to senior year, I added Clark into my list of schools really as an after-thought. I never actually thought I would go to Clark, but it was close to home which was important since my little brother was going to be just barely one year old when I left for school. When I got the opportunity to interview with an alumni, I took it for the experience of interviewing.

I would love to say that my interview went excellently, and it convinced me that Clark was the place for me, but I would be lying, and not just a white lie but a big, fat lie. My interview was terrible. The women returned my call to schedule an interview by saying she was free that very afternoon and I could come to her house to interview. We ended up sitting on a lumpy couch in her basement full of children's toys and plates of half-eaten snacks, where she told me flat out if I was accepted to two of my other schools, I should go there, not Clark. She made campus seem like a backdrop out of a nightmare, and described her peers as the kindo of people with which you did not make lasting relationships. As I climbed back into the car to leave, I talked to my mother about withdrawing my application. "I am never going to go there, Mom." She told me that we had paid the money to apply, and I may as well stick it out.

Through some mix-up or twist of fate, I was offered another interview with another alumni. The recent graduate met me in Starbucks and offered to get me a hot chocolate. She talked about how much she loved the campus, the chances for meeting people and doing things, and her continued involvement in the college (in fact, she was headed to Clark after our meeting to help the Big Brothers, Big Sisters group). The picture she painted was so different from the one my other interviewer had created. I left my second interview still wary but less determined that I would never go to Clark.

My decision to come to Clark is the result of visiting campus during a Scholars' Dinner and on an Accepted Students' Day. During the course of the weekend, I spilt ice all over the table, current undergraduate students protested Sodexo, first year boys in speedo swimsuits welcome our tour group to Clark and Wright Hall, and my mother and I struggled to move a stroller and a cranky almost one-year old up and down many flights of stairs. Despite all this (and maybe even a little bit because of all this), I knew while walking through campus that this was the place for me. I know it is cheesy and cliche, but I just felt it. I found what everyone looks for during the crazy college choice process, that undescribable sense of knowing beyond a doubt where you want to be.

When my little brother comes to visit me at school, he calls it "Yay-yay's school", (he calls me Yay-yay which sounds nothing like Shalyn, but it is still adorable.) and he's right. This is my school; Clark is my place, my home.