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While filling out my housing application, I hadn’t intended on joining a Living Learning Community. With the list of locations being so large and other schools requiring housing similar to LLCs, I had just assumed they were mandatory. With a simple tick of the box, I joined the LGBTQ+ LLC. As a queer woman in the community, the best mistake of my life has led me to make some of my best friends in this strange, new college environment.

The LGBTQ+ LLC has over 30 members, all of whom I had an automatic connection with. Over my first week on the floor we discussed our identities as queer people, a level of openness I hadn’t yet experienced. Since that first week, my newfound friends from the program and I have grown even closer. This week we all went to dinner at Ernie Davis Dining to have a “family meal,” which made me feel like I had a home-away-from-home.

The overall purpose of the LLCs is for these groups to “have intentional faculty support and engage in academic and social experiences on and off campus,” according to SU’s website. The university offers over 20 Living Learning Community options for incoming freshmen and seven more for upperclassmen. The groups range from simple major-specific communities, like the Health Studies LLC, to identity-based groups, such as the Indigenous LLC. There is truly something for every soon-to-be SU student.

Outside of my experience as a student in my LLC, many other people have found these organizations to be beneficial to their college lives. Alejandro Rosales is currently the resident advisor of the LGBTQ+ LLC, but in his freshman year, he was a member of the Leadership LLC. Through his experience in the community, Rosales became interested in working as an RA for an LLC. With the experience, he said he has not only contributed to the Syracuse community, but gained valuable leadership experience that’ll help him in other pursuits.

Rosales’ favorite part of the LLC is how it makes him feel “more involved within the LGBTQ+ community on campus and part of something larger than (him)self.”

The LLC hasn’t just created a community within the floor, but exposed me to the larger queer community at SU. As part of a floor event, the LLC visited the LGBTQ+ Resource Center in the Schine Student Center. While there, we learned about various queer-focused clubs and organizations at SU and heard from the event’s organizers about support systems in place. The event allowed us to explore various resources, but also helped us get to know each other a little more.

SU also has more than just LLCs. The communities provide a solid jumping-off point to find “home” in the university’s over 300 diverse student-run clubs, which range from media-based clubs to sports organizations.

The transition to Syracuse is difficult for everyone, but joining clubs are a great way to build a support group that’ll last through your entire time on campus. Clubs foster a community of like-minded individuals with shared experiences, which can really help when you want to talk about a personal issue that not everyone can understand.

Despite only being in my first month at SU, I can confidently say that joining an LLC will provide an amazing sense of community and is something everyone should be open to trying at least once in their college career.

Claire McBride is a freshman Magazine, News and Digital Journalism major. Her column appears bi-weekly. She can be reached at Cpmcbrid@syr.edu.

Published on September 11, 2023 at 11:05 pm