By Audrey Goettl

I’m so excited to be spending my summer up here at Middlebury! Something I had always heard was that it was really worthwhile to spend at least one summer on campus, so I’m really grateful that I have the opportunity to do so after only finishing my freshman year. After spending time with my family for a couple of weeks, I journeyed back up here to Middlebury and moved into the fifth floor of Starr. I lucked out and got a huge single with a skylight and tons of space, but it was an intense experience moving all of my things up five flights of stairs. Regardless, even in the past week and a half that I’ve been here, I’ve done so many fun things that I couldn’t do during the academic year. This past weekend was reunion weekend and  there were alumni all over campus. I had such great conversations with a lot of them (I even gave some of them tours) and it was really neat to be able to hear their stories and hear about what Middlebury used to be like when they attended. On Sunday, Thilan and I took a trip with some friends up to Lake Dunmore and enjoyed being in the sun. I had never been there before so I was really happy to be able to go and relax (there was also no pressure of having homework to finish or tests to study for – something I have to get used to this summer!). Other than that, I’ve been able to try more restaurants in town, spend more time with friends, actually dive into a novel, and get an average of eight hours of sleep a night. Of course, I’ve also had a great time working at the admissions office and meeting all of the counselors here. I can’t wait to continue my work here for the rest of the summer!