“I made my closest friends at Northwestern through a happy accident. All of our roommates arrived late, and as we were waiting in the hallway for their eventual arrival, we started chatting and decided to walk to orientation together. These girls I stayed close with the entire time and had so many laughs and fun moments. We decided to try to make even more friends that night through a simple game of cards. They didn’t know it at the time, but I had brought an entire bag full of games for that very mission. I brought my different card games to the lounge area, and we quickly made friends, playing games until curfew. Although I loved my roommate, I am very glad her arrival was delayed, as it gave me friends for a lifetime.” –Amelia P., Summer ’23 CPP
“During my time at Northwestern’s CPP, I had the privilege of making memories with many amazing friends. My roommate, Taylor, and I hit it off immediately and expressed how excited we were to experience class at Northwestern. We quickly bonded with many other friends and arranged a shopping trip to Chicago. We had a great time taking the train and had Eataly for lunch. The friendships I made at Northwestern are relationships I hope to keep for a long time; we’ve already made sure to stay in touch over social media.” –Beatrix D., Summer ’23 CPP
“It’s Saturday morning, and I hadn’t really made any real friends yet, or connected with my roommate in a meaningful way, so I was feeling a little bit isolated standing in line for breakfast, when one of the other students just walked up to me and said, “I noticed that you’ve been sitting on your own a lot, would you like to come sit with me and some of my friends?” At first, I was a little bit in shock. It was the kind of thing that I had heard about in empathy and anti-bullying lessons since third grade, inviting kids to sit with you out of nowhere, but my cynical 10th grade brain had convinced me that they only existed in those lessons, that people weren’t actually that nice. But I got over my shock quickly enough, and joined the other student with her friends, and we started chatting. We exchanged where we were from, what class we were taking, what our hobbies are (the girl who had asked me to join their table sang in school choir, like I did, and one of her friends ran cross-country.) Before I knew it, we were exchanging phone numbers and making plans to go to the Pride Parade the next day.” –Henry W., Summer ’23 CPP
“Before the first day of class, me and a friend I made at breakfast decided, quite ambitiously, that we would walk to every major building on the campus map. We explored everywhere and on the way there were hundreds of bunnies. That was when I started my Northwestern bunny photo collection which has grown to exactly 56 photos of different bunnies.” –Olivia M., Summer ’23 CPP
“Orientation was hectic, yet enthralling. The walk around campus was surreal: Lake Michigan seemed grand, the buildings even grander, and the classrooms seems out of a movie. A couple of days of orientation, I finally felt as though I could find my way around campus, but that awe-struck feeling never left my side.” –Christoph N., Summer ’23 CPP
“As an In-Focus student, I didn’t expect to make a lot of friends coming into the camp. After all, it was only two weeks, and I’m not exactly proud of my socializing skills. I expected my roommate and possibly my next-door neighbours to be the only new people I’d meet outside of my classmates for the duration of the program. However, on move-in day, I got to know not only my roommate and my next-door neighbours, but also some of my to-be classmates, some of the Credit Program students, and some students on other floors. That evening, we were also introduced to our RA groups, which were mostly organized around room proximity – so I got to know most of the people in the rooms around mine. We decided to hang out a bit longer after the official RA meeting had finished and ended up playing card games for nearly an hour straight that first night. After that, I knew it would be a great two weeks – with no shortage of new friends to spend it with.” –Jocelyn W., Summer ’23 CPP
“When I first arrived at Northwestern, I was extremely nervous yet excited about the program. Going in, I was a very introverted person and was extremely worried about making friends and if I would make a good first impression, but I was pleasantly surprised by how welcoming everyone was with the amount of hospitality I was given! I was greeted by the RA’s with so much respect and kindness as well as other people participating in the CPP. After orientation, we had the opportunity to socialize with each other through a pizza party and everyone was extremely talkative and genuinely wanted to get to know who you were! I felt comfortable so quickly and all my worries that I walked into the campus with left.” –Vivian A., Summer ’23 CPP
“I loved my roommate! I vividly remember meeting her on the first day and automatically getting along. We were always together, except when we had class and we were constantly laughing. My favorite memory is that we decided to switch beds on the first night, but were too lazy to move anything else to the other side of the room. Because of this, every morning one of us would wake up to the other hovering over them, digging for their clothes in the drawers that lay under the bed. It was a quirky wake up call, yet I miss it.” –Alex H., Summer ’23 CPP