During the summer before my first semester of college, I received what seemed to be hundreds of emails from Mississippi State University regarding various opportunities that were available to me. In this sea of emails, one stuck out to me most. It was about something called a Living Learning Community that would be in Griffis Hall.
For some reason, this caught my attention, and I found myself reading through that email out of all of the ones that had come through that morning. I looked at the classes that the Griffis LLC would take — Honors Psychology with Dr. C. and Honors Fundamentals of Public Speaking with Mrs. Fountain.
Both of these classes are required for my major anyway, so I decided there couldn’t be any harm in giving it a shot.
Mississippi State University describes the purpose of this community as providing “first-year honor students the opportunities to attend the same class, establish study groups, network and live with like-minded students.” I certainly found this to be the case.
Even as early as move-in week, I began to realize that a lot of the other women in my hall were in the same Living Learning Community as me, meaning that we would have class together every day.
Two friends I made through the LLC were able to voice just as much appreciation as I could. Speaking to the excellence of our professors, freshman English major Rowan Feasel had much to say.
“Dr. C’s examples in psychology always made me laugh, and while I sometimes find public speaking daunting, Mrs. Fountain made her classroom a safe environment for me to grow as a speaker and a learner,” Feasel said. “The LLC gave me the opportunity to have great professors.”
Another thing that we all agreed upon was that the opportunity provided to meet new people was invaluable. J. C. Watson, freshman marketing major and another one of my classmates, puts it perfectly.
“College can be absolutely terrifying, and having a small class makes you feel like you’re with a group of friends and teachers who know you personally, which makes you feel comfortable and more at home,” Watson said.
Furthering my point, all of us in the LLC are still just as connected to one another. The people in my classes still live in the same dorm as me, so I see them all the time. It is always so refreshing to see people I got to know so well in such a relatively short amount of time.
Listening to their speeches on everything from family members to nuclear energy, I felt a deep connection to my classmates and I remain friends with them to this day. In an effort to wrap up this little love letter to my classmates and the LLC, I leave with a word of advice to anyone considering joining any LLC: go for it.
You never know who you will meet. These people could be your friends for the rest of your life. Both Rowan and J.C. agree that the friends you make here will absolutely change your college experience for the better. I cannot wait to see where we all go from here.
Rowan Feasel (left), Rose Doyle (center) and J.C. Watson (right) are three of 17 freshman members of the Griffis Hall Living Learning Community, an opportunity for like-minded students to live together in the same dormitory.
