As I sat uncomfortably in the back seat of my mom’s Chrysler minivan, I contemplated whether I should regret the decision I made to sign up for something where I would be spending three weeks at a place where I did not know anyone. We got closer to our destination, and as 80’s rock thumped in my head, I began to feel even more anxious, a deep weight forming inside of my chest. The thoughts rolling around in my head included, “I don’t do things like this. I’m not the type of person to put myself out there. What if I don’t make any friends?” We pulled into the bustling driveway of Bursley hall, the weight in my chest becoming heavier as we walked into the building. At the sign-in table, I was given a University of Michigan lanyard to hold the numerous amount of keycards I was given. Little did I know, that lanyard would be an accessory to every outfit I wore that month. 

The first couple of days in comparison to the rest of the weeks are less than insignificant. Oddly, one constant throughout the duration of the camp was the soft-serve ice cream machine in the dining hall. The friends that I eventually made and I bonded over our love of soft-serve ice cream which we ended up calling “The Cream”. In those weeks there was not one day where we did not have The Cream. In fact, some days we would have it after lunch, dinner, and then go down to central campus and have Ben & Jerry’s. Central campus became a nightly occurrence after we discovered that it was much better than staying in the lobby of Bursley. The glow of the State Street Theater sign filled the main intersection of downtown. The noise of hundreds of conversations buzzed in my ears as cars rolled past. The amount of people surrounding me caused a comforting feeling of insignificance. Alone, but not quite so. After those frequent trips to central campus, we would stay up late into the night talking on a bright blue bench outside our hall. But after eleven o’clock, the door would lock and our keycards wouldn’t work. Which resulted into us using a rock to hold the door open. One night, some of us were on our bench when a man walked past us and looked back directly at our faces. We all paused and looked to see what he would do. He walked almost all the way through the doorway giving us a moment of relief before he kicked the rock out of its place. In that moment, as if in slow motion, all of us exploded off of the bench into a sprint. The twenty feet between where we sat and the door felt like twenty miles. We were fast, but not fast enough. As the door clicked shut, we looked at each other in disbelief. Fortunately, one of our other friends stayed inside and we were able to text her to let us in. 

The place where we spent the majority of our days was in studio. In studio, time seemed non-existent while also flying right past. Feeling the cold drawing board under my arms, I slowly moved my hand across the sheet of paper, gripping the Micron pen as if it was my only lifeline. My concentration centered on always drawing every line perfectly straight. My hair, now cut up to my shoulders rather than down my back, fell in front of my face but failed to break my concentration. I inched toward my endpoint, hand steady, slowly picking up my pen, in order to see if I had achieved the result I wanted. From behind me, I hear the piercing voice of my studio instructor. Everything she said came with a smile along with a passive aggressive undertone. Constantly spewing compliments and constructive criticism, she quickly paced around our ovular shaped studio area. Always reluctant to stop working because I had finally found a form of work that I just couldn't get enough of, I cleaned up my desk area for the day. Every day in studio led up to our final exhibition. Taking place in the open lounge area of the architecture building, the voices of more than two-hundred people filled the room all the way up to the ceiling. The air filled with an odd mixture of excitement and sorrow, the program came to an end along with the month of July.

I came home from those three weeks: upset that I couldn't be with my new friends anymore, excited that I was now able to confirm that architecture would be my future career, and proud of myself for doing something new. The maize and blue of my University of Michigan lanyard will always remind me that going out of my comfort zone can yield good results.