There are three questions Assumption students ask whenever they meet another Assumption student for the first time. Okay, maybe four, if you count asking each others' names, but the primary questions that always seem to spew out instinctively are, "What's your major?" "What year are you?" and "Where do you live on campus?"

I always answer the first, "English," with confidence and a pathetically large amount of gusto, and reply to the second, "Freshman," with slight defense in case I happen to be speaking with those wise and slightly intimidating prophets known as upperclassmen. But when I'm inevitably asked the third, I hesitate, because I know exactly the response I will receive. When I reply, "I'm actually a commuter, I live about ten minutes away," the immediate and instinctive reaction I've received from nearly everyone thus far is a long "Ohhhh," followed by a short gaze at me that blends pity with slight scientific interest.

Sure, I understand that this is probably the most close-knit and sheltered community-oriented school in the country, if you don't count the Amish schools, of course, and I understand that the housing on campus is for the most part well-kept and more than decent to live in. I further understand that commuters make up only about ten percent of Assumption's student population.

This does not change the fact, however, that I wake up every morning in the house I've lived in all my life, grab my keys, get in my car, and drive to school. Nor does this make me an alien or some kind of hapless insect who crawls from underneath her rock every morning and suffer the agonizing ten minute drive to school. I'm simply a person who drives a car to her classes and other school activities and tries her best to breathe in as much of the friendly Assumption atmosphere as she can.

Commuting was not my first choice as a means of transportation to and from my classes. I had wonderful visions last year, while I was bleary-eyed and still half-asleep in my eight a.m. advanced-placement biology class, of rolling out of bed at ten in the morning and shuffling pleasantly off to class in the adjacent building, still in my pajamas. That vision evaporated when the verdict came on the financial situation; commuting to college was my cheapest move. I was extremely disappointed, to say the least, because I was aware that this was perhaps the most pivotal time of my life thus far; I would be meeting an entirely new group of people that I would be spending the next four years with. How could I really get to know people and make lasting friendships if I couldn't share the experience of living away from home for the first time?

I held my doubts through the first week of the fall semester. I became so busy with classes, I really had no chance for pledging a solid effort into my campaign for meeting new people. My only real chance to talk to other Assumption students was through classes, and, well, let's face it, professors don't yield you a second to turn away from their poignantly detailed lectures. As the semester wore on, though, I found it easier to talk to the other students in my classes, probably because the most entertaining thing to do as freshmen was something we were able to do together: make fun of our professors. I suppose now, as I fondly hark back on it, I owe my growing group of friends at Assumption to the professors; it was their quirky characteristics and annoying habits that made a great starting point for conversation.

As I became more confident as a college student, however, I found other ways of making myself more useful throughout the Assumption community, despite my apparent deformity of a car key dangling from my official Assumption College lanyard. Being the English nerd I'm frightfully discovering I am, I enthusiastically joined all three literary publications, and just recently began volunteering for the Book Buddies program through the Reach Out Center. Through my involvement with such organizations, I've not only met new and interesting people, I've met new and interesting people who share the same interests as me. This experience had been entirely foreign in high school to me; although my graduating class of sixty-eight people knew that I was the biggest English buff in the class, I never really found anyone who really shared my interests. Now, my closest friends at Assumption debate with me over the books we read in class, and we compare notes and ideas on character and plot analyses. Yes, I realize that may sound pathetic to most people, but, hey, it's nice to know that there are some people out there with whom you can talk about things other than your professor's tie clashing with his shirt.

Overall, my first year of college hasn't been marred, nor marked, by the fact that I don't live on campus. Sure, I still occasionally feel left out when my friends come into class talking about the fire alarm in Alumni at two-thirty in the morning, or the hot guy that somehow managed to run stark naked through the third floor of Desautels. But I'm quite happy with spending lunchtimes with my growing group of friends, as well as coming back to school after classes for my extra-curricular involvement. I really believe it's the effort to become involved with the community that is reflected in one's happiness at Assumption. The college does its best to make sure us commuters feel as much a part of the community as residents, in my opinion; I do look forward to those fluorescent monthly calendars that mark upcoming events that I get in my mailbox. The bottom line is that Assumption is a friendly school, and, with either on- or off-campus residence, I eagerly look forward to my next three years here.