I still remember my first day walking into Bucknell, carrying this fragile yet hopeful belief that this new home would be built on community. I wanted to belong not because I tried to fit in, but because people cared enough to make space for me. Back then, many said that such dreams were too idealistic, that a true sense of community was a utopian fantasy built on broken hopes. But I held onto it anyway. Because I have always believed that it is not what others do to you that defines your world, it is how you choose to respond that shapes what you stand for. Over time, I have learned that sometimes time itself becomes your greatest teacher.

This is not meant to be a complaint or to sound above anyone. It is simply a reflection, one that I have carried quietly for a long time. We are taught to recognize prejudice when it is loud, when it hurts, when it comes in the form of insults or open rejection. But what no one tells you about are the softer shades of it; the silence, the hesitation, the distance.

It shows up in moments that look ordinary to others. When you are in a group project and no one makes an effort to talk to you, not because of what you said but because your skin colour or accent does not invite familiarity. When you sit at a table and watch people pass by, choosing other seats, not out of cruelty but out of quiet difference. When you know many people, but during the moments that matter, the celebrations, the hardships, the in-betweens, no one really reaches out. Those silences can speak the loudest.

And then there are others who, to survive, learn to blend in. They begin to sound, act and dress in ways that make them seem more like the place they are in and less like where they came from. Some might even see themselves in that reflection, when belonging starts to feel like erasing parts of who you are. Not everyone chooses that path, but for those who do not, it often means being a misfit, standing apart, holding your truth even when it feels lonely.

Someone once referred to the book “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” and told me that there will always be two communities on this campus. That sentence stayed with me. It carried an implication that one group had chosen to come together, while the other had been left with no choice. Even in that statement, there was a quiet divide that no one wanted to name.

I have often heard people say they are just afraid to offend, that hesitation holds them back. But what is worse, assuming or asking? Assumption creates distance, while asking builds connection. Asking does not hurt anyone, it opens a door. It says, I want to understand. It says, you matter.

And I will be honest, I have been lucky. I have friends who have shown me what kindness really means. People who remind me that inclusion does not require a grand gesture, only a simple choice to see another person fully. To smile, to listen, to care. To understand that every story, no matter how different, deserves to be heard.

Maybe this sounds heavy, but it is a truth that repeats itself year after year. Upperclassmen told me about it, and now I find myself telling the same to freshmen. When will the cycle break? When will this quiet separation end?

Yet even in all this, I have found peace. I have found it in the small circle of misfits who have shown me what love can look like when it is genuine. They have taught me that home is not always about place, it is about people. They have shown me that fitting in is not about losing yourself, it is about growing together. They have reminded me that even in silence, there can be kindness, and in difference, there can still be love.