ASHWINI VIVEK
Senior neuroscience major
I came to Trinity University certain that I wanted to major in neuroscience on the pre-med track and not much else. My high school experience ended abruptly with the spread of COVID and during isolation, I lost most of my drive to make myself a well-balanced person who pushed herself to grow academically, personally and socially. My first year at Trinity was spent as a nervous wreck, anxious about school, COVID and making a place for myself, and I knew that something had to give. I joined my sorority, Chi Beta Epsilon, a neuroscience research lab, started writing for the Trinitonian, took English and music classes for fun and gradually started to shed my nerves. I found some of the best friends anyone could ask for and met faculty whose support I am immensely grateful for. Trinity allowed me to push myself in all aspects of my life and I am a better person because of it. Never underestimate trying something new. You never know how good it could be.
JACK MAXWELL
Senior history major
I have written 11 columns since August. I thought it would be fun (for me) to rate them relative to each other. I’ll start chronologically with “Oppenheimer’s surprisingly sympathetic portrayal of communism.” This was a solid first effort, although my views on the film’s politics have evolved. 2 out of 5. “It’s time: SGA must be more transparent” holds up, and SGA has since gotten more transparent. I won’t take credit, but it’s nice nonetheless. 3 out of 5. “Stand in solidarity with the United Auto Workers” is easily my favorite from the fall. I stand by everything I said, and fortunately, the UAW won. Also, a VW plant in Tennessee just voted to join the UAW. 4 out of 5. “BS: How Environmental Studies majors feel about their BAs” is well-liked by my roommates (who inspired it), but it’s obvious to me now that I put minimal effort into it. The best part is the title, which I didn’t come up with (thanks Sam). 1 out of 5. “The best of horror: Dracula chapter VII” is fine. 2 out of 5. “Traditional Thanksgiving dinner is boring” is slightly better. 3 out of 5. “There’s no power to the people this time” has another banger title I didn’t come up with (thanks Diya). 3 out of 5. “‘The Zone of Interest’: Ashes in the Garden” is another favorite, but I wish I’d brought up the genocide in Gaza when connecting the film to the present. 4 out of 5. “MANUAL shows systemic inadequacy of mental health care” is good. 3 out of 5. “The TikTok refugee industrial complex” was the hardest article to write. 3 out of 5. “Vote NO on the proposed change to the FL requirement” is my best and last (real) article. Also, we won! The FL amendment was voted down. 5 out of 5.
DEAN ZACH
Senior English major
In fall 2020, like everyone else, I lived alone. It was my first semester, my first time living away from my parents for an extended period of time, and I treated my Isabel room like a cave. Things would pile up in there: dirty clothes, used masks, library books I wouldn’t read, styrofoam Mabee to-go containers with their too-salty pinto beans. In-person I had two FYE sessions per week which I’d show up to then slither away from without saying a word; on Zoom unmuting myself felt like an event; some days I would fill out the Daily Health Screen on my phone and get my little green badge and it’d feel like the longest conversation I had that day. In spring 2021 I lived at home, where I read a New York Times op-ed (Head: “You Can Be A Different Person After the Pandemic”; Dek: “Our personalities are not set in stone. They are more like sand dunes”) and scoffed. But now it is spring 2024, and I’m surrounded by people I’ve met over the past three years through the Trinitonian and Film Club and summer research and all the other Trinity opportunities I’ve forced myself to take advantage of, and that fall 2020 feeling has been replaced by a new feeling: a reluctance to abandon this place and its people and the warmth of the community they’ve created together. And I hate to say it, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned here, it’s this: our personalities are not set in stone. They are more like sand dunes.
SAM CAUVIN
Senior English major
When I first came to Trinity in the fall of 2020, I remember being so eager to make my college days meaningful. I grew up misled by the shows and movies I had watched as a kid and viewed college as a place of fulfillment and happiness that could beat my trouble-free childhood years. But in my first year here, I encountered the opposite. Fall semester was doomed from the get-go, and so too, were the many fantasies I had created over the summer. Amongst my shattered dreams lay the harsher reality: a campus devoid of college students paired with a crippling case of social anxiety meant I was spending the semester alone. And I did. And it was rough for me, but that reality has since changed. From sophomore year onwards, amidst the once-again populated campus, I found friends, I was invited to parties, I made a home. And thinking about what to write for this piece helped me realize how much I take for granted in this life that I have carved out of myself. So here is a short list of the many things that have made this campus my home for the past four years, and I encourage you to make a list of your own to remind you of what you have created here at Trinity.
Cat prints on the dusty hood of my car. The annual mountain laurel-induced stuffy nose that never fails to appear. Mabee Dining Hall cookies awaiting me on my ever-cluttered desk. Egg drop soup that added comfort to comfort. An H-E-B bag sticky with to-go margarita. The church bell and its proclivity for odd times. “Deanie Baby” and “Midnight Ride.” Blueberries and chocolate chips because I can’t pick just one. Tuesdays at 7:00 p.m. that transitioned into Sundays at 6:30 p.m.
VIVIAN LE
Senior art history major
I remember the wild days when the campus was full of only first-years, all bundles of anxiety and eagerness to connect. Between the cringe-worthy GroupMe chats and the late-night Steak and Shake runs, there was a need to maintain normalcy in a world shut down. Looking back on my first year, it feels like a blur, an experience that only the class of 2024 will remember, full of illegally sneaking into friends’ dorms, moving out after the fall semester just to move back in the spring and the confusion that came when the campus opened back up and feeling left behind because of our abnormal first year. While I can’t speak for everyone, I felt lost and like a year of my college experience was gone and while most other students had a pre-pandemic first year, we didn’t and the sudden change felt suffocating. It feels surreal looking back at those anxiety-filled times of my life versus where I am now. I studied abroad and survived, I met some of the craziest and caring people ever, and I managed to claw my way out of the pit of depression that I feared was going to swallow me up in my first and sophomore years. It hasn’t been easy, but it has been fun, and that is all I could have ever asked for.
