By Megan Webster

First-day jitters are a real thing. And though about 75 percent of mine are a health-risk harbinger from the six cups of coffee I’ve consumed before 9 a.m., the remaining nerves are a delightful anxious bundle of worry. As new students, and even seasoned classroom veterans, we brood over things like making a good first impression, meeting new people (or avoiding old ones), squeaking a residual puberty tone whilst introducing oneself, sitting down in the wrong class, and the ever-foreboding, “Will my professor be a Snape, or a Keating?” In risk of sounding like a college-educated cliché, we are all in this together.

Or are we? After spending approximately two weeks as a university transfer student, I find myself wandering around this new skyline campus longingly nostalgic for the community college by the sea. I sit on a bench, next to a noisy highway and reflect on the place I spent the best eight years of my life, earning a two-year degree. So, here’s my love letter to you, SMCC:

From my very first class at Southern Maine Community College in 2009, I knew I had found someplace special. I was seventeen, pregnant, and had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up (apparently space cowboy isn’t actually a thing). But none of that seemed to matter — from the admissions office, to advising, to the professors, I forthwith felt like I was part of an intimate and welcoming family of scholars who wore flannel and messenger bags and whom you addressed by their first names. Professors endeavored to learn every student’s name and a small morsel of information about each of us so that we could formulate connections between both teachers and fellow students.

To all those who, like me at first, would get uncontrollable butterfly migrations in their stomachs as the introduction around the circle got closer to your turn, I say: enjoy that moment of fear — embrace it even, because at least you are being given the opportunity to make yourself known.

In the ensemble of my five university courses I have said my name aloud once, said “here” twice, and raised a silent hand eight times. Attendance might as well be taken by Jaquen H’ghar: “A girl has no name.” As a direct result, I know not a single thing about my fellow English-major comrades, nor do my professors have any ounce of information as to the intent of why we’re even taking their class. To be completely honest, I forgot what class I was walking to the other day (literary theory of something, I think). The disconnect is palpable. A cog in the machine of assembly-line learning.

SMCC is home; it is a community within a community college, where both traditional and nontraditional students flourish under the engaging atmosphere, with a hint of sea breeze. The professors are treasures to the education system; the campus events are diverse and inviting, including students from all walks of life; the flexibility     in schedule offers students to go at a pace that coincides with their lives off campus; effort is taken to hear the student’s needs and desires for new classes, organizations and clubs, career guidance, and many other individualized accommodations. It is a place to make local connections, and lasting friendships.

I’ll never be able to pay proper dues to all those who made an impact during my nearly decade-long tenure there — but I can, with absolute certainty, accredit who I am today to the education (both in the books and off) to this institution. SMCC is a fellowship to be cherished. So join a club, volunteer on campus, walk the beach between breaks, attend poetry month, raise your hand in class and voice your opinion while you are still encouraged to have one. Don’t take a single academic moment there for granted — for it is the most unique college experience in Maine.