Transitioning to college is a hard experience for many students, especially when attending a university far from home. I grew up in a small city where all my friends were made early on in elementary school, so when I accepted my offer to come to Harvard, I was very nervous. 

It had been a long time since I had actively tried to make friends, and I was scared of what a new place might bring. Before classes officially started, I decided to participate in a pre-orientation program, specifically the First-Year Urban Program (FUP) that focused on civic engagement in the greater Boston area, hoping it would help ease me into college life by helping those in my new community. While it truly was one of my favorite freshman year experiences, and I met many new people, none of them quite felt like my people.

A week later, it was time for all the other freshmen to move in, and my anxiety reached an all-time high. Orientation events filled the schedule, but in my nervousness, I avoided most of them. Near the end of orientation, though, I heard there was one last event, and while I don't remember the name of it, it came with FREE MERCH! Now if there’s one thing that unites all college students, it’s free stuff. So I figured, I might as well walk away with a free t-shirt.

The event started at 8:00 PM, and I decided to get there a whole 5 minutes early. What I didn’t realize was that every other student also had the same plan, so I was relegated to the back of the line. Looking back at it, fate really stepped in. That’s where I met Jesse, standing with a small group of acquaintances, joking about how he was only here for the free merch too. Sensing an opening, I jumped into the conversation. We found out quickly that we had a few shared interests–our love for free things and our love for matcha. After that day, Jesse and I kept bumping into each other everywhere: at Annenberg (‘Berg for short), Cabot Library, and the Smith Center. Harvard pretty much said we had no choice but to be friends and blockmates. 

At Harvard, you hear many people talk about blocking as you approach the end of your first semester. As it comes time to get randomly placed into one of the 12 upperclassmen houses, you get a form to fill out where you include the name of up to eight of your closest friends. You're pretty much telling the college: these are the people I want to live with (or around) for the next three years. It assures that whatever house you get placed in, your friends go with you too. This is the story of not only how I met my best friends, but also the people that I chose to 'block' with for the remainder of my time here. 

And so the story continues: during one of our Berg dinners, the next member of our future blocking group appeared–Sunny. She wasn’t shy about introducing herself and wanted to learn everything about us. When she heard we were both thinking about concentrating in Computer Science, she invited us to be part of her CS50 Puzzle Day team, a tradition where students from all coding backgrounds team up to solve logic puzzles for hours. From then on, we became inseparable.

A few days later, Sunny, ever so determined to make us have more friends, introduced us to Avery, one of the people she had met during orientation week. At first glance, I wasn’t sure we’d click since he gave off a bit of a “bro” vibe. But after a long, slightly chaotic conversation in Cabot Library, I realized that behind the facade was someone just as quirky and strange as the rest of us.

Our backgrounds and futures couldn't be more different. Whether you look at some of the more obvious differences such as our race or gender, or something as small as what time we wake up in the morning. It is these differences that have helped us grow closer together; it is these differences that make our group work so well. Together, we have made countless memories–going on trips, eating meals, and enjoying our time while it lasts. Over time, our circle of friends has grown far beyond just the four of us, but no matter how busy we get, we always find time to come back together, bringing everyone else along for the ride. They’ve welcomed me into their worlds, inviting me to cultural celebrations, sharing traditions I never experienced growing up, and creating a chosen family I didn’t know I was missing.