Claire’s first day on campus consisted of meeting her roommates, moving into her dorm, a “Welcome” dinner, and a failed attempt at baking cookies with the aforementioned roommates. The next three days were a whirlwind of meeting new people and finding out about all of the clubs and activities that were available on campus. She got to know Heidi, her roommate, and the other girls in her pod. They even made one batch of cookies without burning them.

Grand Mountain University stood tall before Claire as she walked into her first class, geography.

“Welcome to Geography 110, I’m your professor, Nina French. Throughout this course, we’ll study the world and its people. Please look at the syllabus on your desks.”

Claire looked at the sheet of paper in front of her and prepared for her new life as a college student.

Claire left her geography class and headed towards an orientation event at the library. She heard her name and turned towards the sound to see Heidi fast-walking to her.

“Hey, where are you going?” Heidi asked when she caught up.

“Library orientation, wanna come?”

“Nah, I’ll explore later. I’m going to get food, do you want to join me after?”

“Sure, I’ll text you when I’m done?”

“Sounds good, later!” Heidi turned and jogged towards the Pub.

Heidi was a transfer student, but Grand Mountain University was notoriously hard to transfer into because of the credits system. This meant that Heidi had to retake some classes and was essentially a freshman until she finished some of her general ed requirements. And freshmen had to stay in the dorms, so Heidi was stuck for at least a quarter if not longer. She didn’t seem to mind though and Claire was glad that they shared a room.

Claire walked into the crowded pub and stood for a second while she searched the crowd of students for Heidi. She was sitting at the window bar and had her bag in a seat saved for Claire. Claire grabbed a tray and picked up some food before going over to join her.

“Hey girl, how are you?” Heidi acted like they hadn’t just seen each other a half hour ago.

“I’m good, just not used to this schedule.” Claire shrugged.

“I feel ya, I forgot how draining general eds can be,” Heidi snuck a fry from Claire’s plate.

“Yeah, I guess. I’m just happy to be out of high school,” Claire shrugged.

“Amen to that!” Heidi chuckled and stole another fry. Claire bit into her burger and gazed out the window.