When you attend Quinnipiac University long enough, everything starts to seem fake.

Ever since I enrolled, there are times when I’d be going about my day and forget that the campus around me even exists. I used to walk out of my dorm, take one good look at Sleeping Giant and use all of my energy to tell myself that it is an actual place I can visit and explore.

I think we all might take this little college we call home for granted.

As a first-year, I never really had too many opportunities to get off campus because I didn’t have a car, and school-run transportation was unreliable. Most days, my friends and I would just enjoy each other’s company in our dorms or at other spots like the dining hall. For an entire year, I cherished these times with my friends, but I never really recognized how special our campus is.

In my second year, I can now see the error of my ways.

My second Friday back at school, I decided to take a late-night walk around campus for the sake of it. Needless to say, I was blown away in a manner I had never experienced before. It was peaceful. To walk around and hear the quiet sounds of Hamden working in symphony with the fun of a Friday night was almost musical.

The best moment was when I decided to just sit down and look at the stars. It was nothing special, but it’s ours. If every Quinnipiac student sat down and looked up with me, we would see the same sky. Everything around me was real, and it’s all ours to enjoy if we so choose.

Despite all of our frustrations with construction, the Mount Carmel campus is a special place. A place only we as Quinnipiac students can say we’ve lived in and lived through. So let’s appreciate it before our time here is up.