The "Community"...It Will Grow On You

By Claire Cunningham

Notre Dame Academy, Park Hills

           

            During the first few days of the Kentucky Governor’s Scholar Program I would often entertain myself by interchanging the words community and cult.

Initially, I was intimidated by the administration’s forceful speeches on their utopian society. The mere thought of being called out during the weekly community meeting or, God forbid, being late, gave me nightmares.

I was not a happy scholar.

            To be frank, I had no genuine desire to participate in a five-week program focused on education, a program that would tear me away from my friends, my family, and my summer fun. In my mind GSP was a summer camp for nerds; kids who looked forward to exams, thrived on personal response essay tests, and had no personal social agenda for the summer.  I had built up in my own mind this sort of scholastic-based prison.

            In mid-June, when I arrived on the Bellarmine University campus in Louisville,  the atmosphere fell nothing short of my low expectations. The first day was chock full of painfully awkward introductions, forced smiles, and my own angry glances at my parents for forcing me to participate in this slave camp. The one glimmer of hope that I had was that my roommate didn’t seem like a reject and some of the girls on my floor had decent friend potential. But other than that, the situation looked bleak.

            Ironically, as the first week opened and I became familiar with my schedule, I only became more confused. The bizarre classes and early rising often caught me off guard and I felt like a little kid lost in a big and daunting grocery store. I found solace in my Focus Area of study.

            I have always enjoyed writing and my Focus Area, Journalism and Mass Media, allowed me to express my creativity. This class also gave me my first, honest to God, GSP friend, Casey Breese, a senior at Heath High School in Paducah. Finally, I had found someone who could keep up with my sassy and sarcastic remarks, liked the same music, and could make me laugh. It was refreshing to be around another person like myself. I hope that I was as comforting to him as he was to me.

            With one new friend under my belt and my confidence building, I began to reach out to girls on my floor. I came to find that my roommate was quite charming, and I began to enjoy our awkward run-ins as they bloomed into enjoyable conversations filled with shallow prattle, gossip, and even politics. Kelsey Day, my roommate from Harlan County, slowly but surely came out of her shell and became my ally. She was my friend to sit next to during the awful meetings, my friend to find at lunch, and my friend to pour my heart out to every night about friends, classes and boys.

            These new friends had more of an impact on my attitude than I was ever aware. Because I had these faces to look for at the next “mandatory fun” activity, friends to walk with to miscellaneous activities and just had people with whom I could connect and talk, my outlook on GSP soared.

            I had never realized up until this point how much I needed to be around people to feel whole. I had always thought myself to be an independent and free-thinking girl who wasn’t afraid to go anywhere alone. GSP humbled my inflated ego and taught me to appreciate the people that were kind-hearted enough to put up with me.

Yet that is what GSP is all about. This “intellectual program” was designed to draw in a diverse group of students from all over the state and allow them to forge friendships that can last a lifetime. I have never met teenagers quite like my fellow scholars. Not only were these kids fun and exciting, they were intelligent. They could hold their own in debates over politics, religion and society. I believe that this is what makes the program unique. Simply put, it is not a normal adolescent environment.

Now these abnormal surroundings have grown on me. Grown on me to the point that when I am thrust back into the real world I will most likely feel lost, similar to how I felt during the first few days of GSP. So if this cult or community is accepting scholars, let the hazing begin.