When you first lay eyes on your SUNY Geneseo adventure, you will likely be seeing the south side of campus, where most freshmen live: Onondaga, Niagara, Wayne, Suffolk, and Nassau halls. But have you ever wondered where everyone from all those places congregate to get to the other side of campus? The answer is a tale of three paths, marked by a big rock on the side by Onondaga and a lamp post by the side of Niagara Hall. During the day students rush out and about, converging near the three paths and heading to class. During the afternoon you might see them walking towards Milne to study or going to Letchworth to grab some food. At night they return to their respective halls down one of the three paths, marking the end of a day.
When I first settled in to the south side of campus, I couldn’t help but notice how the big path from the townhouses splits off to three paths. Now, from outside my window at Niagara Hall, I wake up every morning to a seagull perched outside. From August onwards, the seagull has accompanied me from its perch on a lamp post. As strange as that sounds, I feel it as a special gift. Another lies directly across from that very lamp post, where a giant rock and a row of trees dot the landscape, welcoming people to the south side: all of them are identical, planted right beside the left path which leads to Onondaga. The trees line up well with one another down the path, leading students out of south side and waiting to greet them with as they come back. The big rock right beside the point—where the three paths meet—is a place to take stunning pictures of Onondaga field and to meet up with friends on their way to classes or lunch. But it’s also home to small insects, too small for the human eye to see. This brings me to the last gift: the three paths foster a community like no other. People from all the halls converge here, and that is where I saw new friends playing ultimate frisbee who invited me to play. These might just be three simple paths and three simple gifts, but they have laid the foundation for my Geneseo experience. I put my best foot forward and everything else has followed.
