For the past 18 years, I have been conditioned to understand “community” as a given.
I was simply enrolled in my local public schools: Green Elementary, Pershing Middle, and Patrick Henry High. In those schools, I was randomly placed in classes. In those classes, I was randomly placed in a seat. My best friends and my community were often those nearest to me, and I never fully chose where I was.
But I chose UC Davis.
And here, for the first time, I have no “default” community. No given. Here, I’ve learned quickly that building, as opposed to stumbling into, community is no easy feat.
In March 2020, I was in seventh grade. One day, my science teacher informed us that once the school day was over, we weren’t going to be coming back to school for two weeks.
Instead, my first time back on a campus was a year and a half later, and I was a high schooler.
During the early years of the pandemic, I, along with many in my generation, learned to expect less from other people.
Since I no longer had a community outside of the three people in my home, much of what I used to rely on community for – entertainment, a sense of identity, and overall support – I learned to rely on myself for. I thought, reasonably, that this independence was rather “adult.”
Independence is a valuable trait in college, undoubtedly, but interdependence has proven to be the key to community building.
Relying on others when necessary
My college growth thus far hasn’t meant learning to do more things on my own; rather, I’ve grown by accepting that for which I must rely on others.
I’ve relied on others for everything from post-laundry lint rollers to serious homesickness consolation. I started with an extra bobby pin, traded for a borrowed stool, and succeeded in breaking the ice with my roommate.
Understandably, those of us who spent some of our formative years in various levels of quarantine have felt the lack of community in many ways.
Spend only a few minutes on social media (our surrogate community) and you’ll encounter Gen-Zers longing for the instant connections of “girlhood” and the Gilmore–Girls-style familiarity of small-town America.
Learning the benefits of community
Luckily, as someone who’s recently made the switch from suburban San Diego to rural Davis, I can say with confidence that the benefits of community can be reaped without traveling physically or temporally.
I found a strong sense of community in a local farmer’s market. By shaking hands with the growers of my produce and swapping stories with the members of my local government, I came face-to-face with people on whom I rely.
When I come home to San Diego, I am excited to attend the farmer’s market in downtown La Mesa to connect with those that I unknowingly relied on throughout my growing up.
We are a communal, tribal species. Our evolution demands us to interact in person and in groups, not impersonally and online.
Although my peers and I were unfortunately faced with a massive social roadblock in the pandemic, I am thrilled by the prospect of us – ironically enough – overcoming our burdensome independence and learning to rely on others for things that cannot reasonably be solely self-supplied: connection, support, joy.
Patrick Henry High School graduate Emma Clifford is a freshman at UC Davis.
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