I’ve lived on the South 40 for all four years of my WashU undergraduate experience. I’ve lived in a dorm with walls painted a yellow, vomit-like hue; I’ve lived in a dorm with layers of mold in and around the vents; I’ve lived as both resident and RA. 

Friends and others who meet me often poke fun at my years of South 40 life. “Aren’t you sick of BD food?” they ask. (Definitely). “Isn’t it weird to live with freshmen?” (No, I love them. Shoutout to any of my past or current residents). 

In response to these questions, I often joke about having a sort of Stockholm Syndrome for the South 40. I can’t stop complaining about it, but in my years at WashU, I never permanently left the 40, either. Until now. As I sit writing this piece, there’s exactly four weeks until I leave the South 40 for the final time. 

Despite my musings about my years on the South 40, it’s not the physical location I’ll miss. I have no doubt I’ll move on quickly from my once-mold-infested dorm room and that large cardboard box I never unpacked. As I reflect on my time at WashU, I remember the people, the communities, the events, and other memories that I can keep with me as I graduate.

Some of those memories are quite distinct to the experiences of the Class of 2024. I started my first year at WashU on the South 40 in 2020 in the height of COVID-19. Due to the pandemic, the first-years were placed alone in dorms to help limit the spread. The entire South 40 was just first-years — though I never really went anywhere else because of health precautions. As I’m describing my freshman year, I already feel like a grandma relaying the hardships of the past to her grandchildren. (“Back in my day, I could only lay eyes on the ugly yellow walls of Umrath House…”). 

I point out the uniqueness of my freshmen year not to suggest that the Class of 2024 had the worst freshman experience, though that could certainly be argued, but to emphasize how much has changed since I arrived at WashU in 2020. I’m sure that the current class of first-years will look back in four years and be able to track similar changes. While we all have shared knowledge from residing on this campus — with distinct terminology as well, as words like BD and DUC and WILD are only intelligible to a WashU alum — each graduating year also has unique institutional knowledge and memories accumulated over time. 

It’s both hopeful and disappointing. I’ve seen the re-introduction of some campus traditions and freshman year activities that I never got to participate in. But I’ve also seen more disappointing shifts in feeling a frustrating loss of collective memory over time of events from my first year, as I wrote about recently, for example, concerning Greek Life in the summer of 2020.

Despite these shifts, one thing hasn’t changed. I entered college undecided, and I’m leaving undecided as well. There’s a lot of uncertainty that I felt at 18 years old that hasn’t gone away as I enter that mysterious thing called a “gap year.” I don’t know yet what will come next.

However, the support I have felt from friends and communities at WashU leave me feeling more sure than ever; more sure in myself, and more sure that it’ll all work out somehow. After graduation, there’s no doubt that I’ll begin to feel nostalgia for a Nintendo Switch tournament in a common room or a 1 a.m. trip to Paws and Go or the stuffy StudLife office. But it’s not the places themselves that will evoke fond memories; it’s the people who I will truly miss. 

As I depart my South 40 dorm each day for the next four weeks before the final time I close the door, I’ll likely find myself becoming more and more reminiscent as my undergraduate years come to an end. But for now, I’ll hold off on staring longingly and romantically out onto the South 40 from a window (until the inevitable sound of a fire alarm or a shouted obscenity) and try instead to spend as much time as possible with the people for whom I will never be able to truly express the extent of my gratitude and love.