Before this year, I had never spent a summer anywhere else but home, for the most part. I would vacation a few times throughout the break, but mostly just rest from the long school year that was now behind me. However, this summer, I signed up for classes at Ole Miss. I was really excited to get back to college only a few weeks after I went home for the summer, but, when I got back, things were very different. There are still plenty of people around, which differentiates it from how high schools usually are in the off-months, but it still wasn’t the same. I’ve always loved Ole Miss, because there really is nothing like it anywhere else. The campus appeal, the atmosphere in the Grove on a game day, and having so many friends in one place are what drew me here in the first place, but I have come to the realization that most of what I enjoy about the University of Mississippi is absent during the months of summer.
Surprisingly, there are still plenty of people here working, taking classes, going to orientation and doing all sorts of other things, but that’s about it. For starters, everything you’ve heard about the most beautiful campus in the country isn’t exactly true. The grove and its splendor are still there, but it’s empty. In addition, there is so much construction going on around campus that it drowns out a lot of the positive, visual attributes on which Ole Miss usually thrives. It seems like I can’t walk to class without hearing grinding and cutting, or choking on the clouds of dust being kicked up by the many varieties of heavy machinery present. I guess summer is the best time for construction, but there is quite a bit more than you would expect and a shortage of solutions to the disturbances it causes.
Aside from the construction issue, the lack of things to do is equally unbearable. There aren’t student worship services to attend, sporting events to watch, or much else that the University normally offers as a form of entertainment. The sharp decrease in student enrollment assuredly accounts for this, but maybe Ole Miss could work toward providing more summer programs that work toward uniting the smaller student population present in summertime. One suggestion to help with this would be to instate a smaller summer intramural league; it would keep people active and busy when they would otherwise be doing little to nothing.
Lastly, since many people’s friends are gone for the summer, there are fewer people with whom to do things. The masses of bodies that normally walk around together are now replaced by individuals, couples, and the occasional trio, which detracts from the happy atmosphere Ole Miss normally has to offer. Anything the school could do to help students to make new friends would go a long way as well. The summer is simply too nice to waste, so we should help Ole Miss to be more enjoyable and to live up to its potential more in the months of June and July.
