Not Just Freshmen: All NewStudents Need Care

Every fall, Deerfield welcomes hundreds of new sophomores, juniors, and seniors/post-graduate students aside from just freshmen. However, these new students, me included, are likely to face loneliness, anxiety, and a lack of support. I believe that the SLO’s role, in this case, is to bring support and care to the students and help them embrace a Deerfield life embodying our community pledge, “I will act with respect, integrity, and care for others.” I have found trouble adapting to Deerfield this fall. I expected integrating to be challenging but possible and eventual. I felt awkward when I saw a bunch of friends swarming about campus that I couldn’t say I've had so far at Deerfield. I've gotten a few opportunities to make friends like the new junior panel and various orientations, but it’s never enough to form deep connections. I had thought to myself in the first couple of days: “Why am I here?” This seems to be a common sentiment amongst the new students. Being a new student in Deerfield’s overwhelming culture that stresses excellence is hard; for me, being a new junior is full of confusion. I began classes, and the academic and athletic pressure started to accumulate, leaving me no time to socialize. After some weeks, I still felt alone. Anxiety that I’ll never belong to Deerfield and an unhealthy amount of focus on academics and athletics become too much sometimes. There’s no simple solution, but I think the SLO is meant to be there to help. I could have gone about never saying anything, and no one would have ever noticed. I think the advisor role that the SLO attempts to curate doesn't work as well as expected. For example, if you don’t feel comfortable with your advisor, there’s practically no support. But I think that Deerfield is supposed to help students navigate these challenges. In my experience, I often had to find other ways of supporting myself than the ways the school offers. I feel that a lot of the new juniors I connected with would agree. I believe the problem is not that the SLO doesn't know how to help new students to integrate into the Deerfield community. It seems to me that adapting to Deerfield as a freshman is so much easier than adapting to Deerfield as a new student of any other grade. Freshmen gets their village, a trip to Camp Greylock, and four years to form their own communities. The SLO should emulate these activities when helping other new students to bond and fit in. I hope these instances where new students feel ignored are merely out of a misunderstanding of the dynamics of integrating into a new environment. I simply wish for the SLO to be more intentional with their purpose of providing a true Deerfield experience that applies to everyone, not just the new freshmen class. I believe there should be more attention devoted to the struggles of students entering Deerfield after 9th grade. Actions like checking in with new students, making sure advisors are supporting them, and curating more opportunities where new students can connect with the whole class are some suggestions.