UCU: A Bubble in Time by Cristina Buruiană

In your time at this college, you will likely hear a lot about how “UCU is a bubble, and you should try to break it from time to time by seeking out entertainment or hobbies in the city”, etc., etc. I certainly found it true that, with its lovely, enclosed campus and relatively small community, this place can lull you into thinking that you don’t need anything else (groceries be damned; that’s what silent dinners are for). But I don’t want to talk about The UCU Bubble™. The phrase has gotten pretty overused as it is. No, I am here to suggest that the real bubble is not about the space, but about the flow of time.  

I am now a third-year and a “graduant”, that is to say, my official graduation is still conditional on slaying the Big Bad called Thesis. At the moment, I measure my time in hours until the next draft submission and days until the final deadline. In all honesty, I wish I wasn’t measuring at all because the ever-decreasing number is freaking me out, but that’s beside the point. I would like to deliver a cheesy line like “I still remember my first day at UCU like it was yesterday”, but I can’t say that I do… Sure, I remember driving onto campus, stopping by Dining Hall for my key, meeting one of my unitmates for that year there, and then arriving at my barren room. Beyond that, I only have vague impressions of events and interactions: Intro Week happened (there’s photographic evidence anyway), I met my other unitmates, then classes started, and the rest is history. But what happened…?

You got sucked into a whirlwind of assignments, committee events and just plain surviving away from home, and before you knew it, it was Fall Break. Then you blinked: it was the Christmas of your first year. Blinked again, and summer had arrived. You were confused about how you got here so fast, but it didn’t matter right then because you were free from classes for a month or two. You blinked again, more slowly, as if trying to capture the exact moment when the scene changed. “You need to write a thesis proposal, 500 words by next week, please.” You squeezed your eyes shut, hoping it was a mistake, hoping someone had just clicked the wrong part of the screen and made the video skip forward and you didn’t actually jump to the end of the movie. But there was no mistake. All that happened is that the UCU (time) bubble, this thing keeping you in a maddening looping routine, suddenly burst. And so, you were struck with the realization that almost three years have passed, and you wonder what they were even filled with. 

I know I’m neither the first nor the last person to lament the unforgiving passage of time. But then, it’s not time itself that I have an issue with, but the blur it leaves behind, a blur I’ve only felt at UCU so far. The course content was always changing, talks with friends usually held something new, and yet, days merged into one another. It got to the point where I doubted whether the last time I hung out with that one friend was 2 weeks or 2 months ago. I would go about my day, trying to balance studying, hanging out with others, watching a movie, going to the dance show or a play, and getting ice cream; still, ask me about it a month later and you’ll be met with the same startled “oh right, I did that”.

You could definitely say it’s a “me” issue, and I need to practice mindfulness and be more conscious of doing things on auto-pilot; that’s probably true. But it’s not just me. I’ve heard similar versions of this sentiment during the breaks in my classes or in my kitchen while making lunch: “I can’t believe it’s already spring break”; “The semester ends in 4 weeks? That’s crazy!” And you could certainly argue that it’s not a uniquely UCU thing, that it’s just a matter of routine that warps one’s sense of time, and anyone can experience it. Even so, I don’t think our turn should come now. 

We are too young to be stuck in a routine, too young to be so jaded and indifferent as weeks or months pass us by. I would hope that life at the Bachelor’s level can still be fun and make a lasting impression, despite the pressures of grades or the need to get a job. To be very dramatic for a second, it may be too late for me now: I’m graduating, I’m going out into the world, and the responsibilities will only increase (fellow “graduants”, sorry you’re getting caught in the crossfire here). But for the sake of those who still have a year or two left in this place, I won’t tell you to go off-campus every chance you get; that’s but a band-aid fix. I can only urge you to be intentional and present, whatever it is you do.          

(please include a little drawing like this meme if possible, it represents this article really well)