senior thesis
It Will Always Be There
Sophomore and Junior Years
While the group had not completely self-destructed, the separation that began second semester continued throughout sophomore year. Five RHPers transferred to other schools, and two dropped out completely. Many of those who remained were faced with a sense of being “adrift.” “A lot of people felt like, ‘What now? Do we keep partying? Do we settle down? What’s after RHP?’” During this semester, many people changed their majors or decided to leave. Many also became more involved with their jobs or extracurricular activities and had very little time to devote to socializing.
One thing that “solidified the divide that occurred during second semester” was Zoom. Six RHPers lived with two other people in a house called Zoom that developed a bad reputation:
“Whatever reputation that house had got around to a lot of people and a lot of people weren’t happy with it. I don’t know how in the hell that house got that reputation. Yeah, we had a few weird, stupid parties. But we only threw five or six parties that year. We spent most of the time in that damn house playing video games or reading. I don’t know how in God’s name it got the incredible wild and insane reputation that it did.”
(Zoom’s reputation probably developed from its first party that year, “Debauch-Fest.” To those unused to wild parties, the stories that circulated afterwards were shocking.) Since Zoom was off-campus, it was not difficult to inadvertently avoid it, and in so doing, lose touch with its residents. One Zoom resident “saw Kat and Smackie and Caroline and all of them maybe two or three times during that semester.” As the two groups drifted further apart, RHPers “had nothing in common to talk about anymore.”
On top of the unconscious drift, a friction arose among the residents of Zoom:
“Living together made a major difference in our friendship. When you live with somebody a whole new set of issues arises. We were all friends but we all had very different ways of living... People [were also] getting sick of each other. ‘Okay you’re all great but you’re boring me.’ So everybody went out to meet new people.”
At winter break, two of Zoom’s residents left. One person’s scholarship was taken away because of low grades, and another “just wanted to chill and hang out and not worry about much” so he returned to the East coast.
There was also disruption in the other side of the group. One RHPer developed anorexia. It got better after she moved back to the dorms for second semester, but dealing with her illness was intensely difficult for her friends.
While relations between RHPers were friendly, they became more and more sporadic as sophomore year faded into junior year. Several RHPers went abroad. After finishing general education requirements, people became more and more involved with their majors and had less to talk about with each other. Perceived wounds from freshman and sophomore year still hurt. While RHP was at the foundation of our college experience, other things now seemed more important to most RHPers.