To put it simply, Potsdam, New York is a college town. There are four campuses for higher education: St. Lawrence, Clarkson, SUNY Potsdam, and SUNY Canton within a ten-mile radius of each other. As a result, there are roughly 13,000 college students in the area (“Why Choose”). Every year the town holds an event called First Saturday which college students from SUNY Potsdam and Clarkson are encouraged to attend. The event is designed to expose students to the town. As a local resident, I am very familiar with the town; however, as I was walking around Market Street on First Saturday, I felt lost. I was now also a Potsdam college student, and the many students who surrounded me had just moved here from other towns. There were hundreds of college students swarming around the highway where temporary booths had replaced the flow of traffic that normally presides. Bright advertisements and marked-down merchandise dominated store windows beckoning the passing students to venture in (Winters). However, it wasn’t necessarily the large emphasis on consumerism that seemed so strange to me; I had seen that side of Potsdam during the Summer Festivals of the past. It was rather the large number of college students and how they were interacting with the town that caught me off guard.
During the event, I found myself in the position of feeling like a high school student while actually being a college student. I saw people my own age entering into businesses that I had never dared or desired to enter before. Such places were unofficially off limits to me. Though my parents never told me I couldn’t go, it was understood that I wouldn’t. As I saw my peers walking into the stores, I wondered why they would go to a place that to me was unapproachable because of my parents’ expectations. Even further, there were students going into stores that I considered to be inferior in comparison to other businesses. These students appeared to be just like me, yet they were taking an approach to the town that was completely different from my own. My reflections since that day have brought me to believe that the difference between my experience of Potsdam and that of the incoming college students was our perceptions of the town. Mine had been shaped throughout my childhood and theirs was in the process of being shaped during this transitional period of independence in their lives.
I have a long and personal history with Potsdam while the other new students are seeing the town with a fresh outlook. I was born in Canton-Potsdam Hospital; as a result I will always be connected to it. Furthermore, Potsdam was the destination of many outings that my friends and I went on throughout my childhood and high school years. Friendships were built and strengthened during picnics at Ives Park, movie outings at the Roxy, or dinner at one of the numerous restaurants in town. SUNY Potsdam was not important to me for its educational value, but rather the memories I associated with it. When I looked at the campus, I felt the anticipation that I had experienced during the hundreds of soccer games that I both played in and watched on the fields. I heard the music rise from the orchestras that had performed at Crane as my mother and I listened from the audience. I saw the vivid images from past school trips and my after-prom party at Maxcy Hall. These cherished memories correlate to a substantial amount of my life thus far and, consequently, cannot be replaced easily.
On the other hand, many new incoming college students have little or no connection whatsoever to Potsdam. They have no memories attached to the town. In their first few weeks at school, they were experiencing their first real taste of freedom. At college there are no parents around to give restrictions as to where they could go or what they could do (Stearns). One new student that I surveyed told me that Potsdam meant independence. This immediate and unrestricted freedom in one’s college town is a welcome opportunity for many who have been dying to make their own choices but have not had the chance. They do not see the town through memories, as I do, but through the potential freedom that it could have. So, as I continued to view Potsdam through the eyes of a local, they were looking to it as the venue for their newfound autonomy.
In many cases, an immediate transition into an independent lifestyle can bring about an abundance of potentially harmful situations. College campuses, which provide such an environment, are generally regarded as hotspots for substance abuse (“Bringing”). Several researchers hypothesize that this is because college “provides more freedom and less social control than the high school years” (White, para. 2). Aside from the increased freedom, there is also a greater availability and opportunity to engage in risky behaviors (Fromme). However, while studies do show that there is a large increase in potentially harmful habits during the college years, I believe that there is also a substantial increase in healthy and constructive experiences as well. Such experiences include study abroad, interacting with students who have different religious and racial backgrounds, participating in internships, and exposure to co curricular activities (Kuh 220). In fact, during the 2007-2008 school year, there was an 8.5 percent increase in U.S. college students embarking on study abroad programs (Marklein).
To explore all of these issues, I conducted interviews of current students attending SUNY Potsdam, as well as graduates of Colton-Pierrepont high school, about their experiences and thoughts on Potsdam. In my surveys of local high school students who have gone on to college, I inquired as to whether they now participate in activities during their college experience that they did not participate in high school. My intentions behind this were very simply to confirm that college students are willing and able to do more things while attending college away from home. Every response showed that college has opened them up to new experiences. Former Colton-Pierrepont student Nathan Campbell stated, “…everything I do is new. I've been to New Orleans, Kentucky, the mighty Mississip, and all states in between; Campaigned for Obama; talked to politicians; become a master of the interstate; picked up guitar; and plan on going to Africa next fall”. Two other students, Stephanie Collins and Caleb Campbell, reported that they have been on study abroad trips since starting college, with trips in Argentina and Denmark respectively. Noah Jenkins talked about opening up to new friendships that he couldn’t have made in school: “There are so many new and different people here to meet and so many things to do with those people.”
These responses suggest that the reason new Potsdam students were willing to go to shops that I was unofficially prohibited from entering is merely due to their willingness to try new experiences and embrace the initial freedom that college can bring about. While such evidence supported my theory about new college students broadening their horizons, I was still uncertain as to my other problem: why were the students refraining from going to my favorite spots in the town? My survey yielded some very intriguing results. While both the college students and the former locals reported that businesses were the most visited places in town, none of the college students cited any place other than a business. On the other hand, locals enjoy places other than businesses. They responded with places such as Ives Park, the college campuses, local churches, and the Country Club. Such information suggests that locals have a much more personal experience in the town than the incoming students. This trend of separation of college students from the surrounding community and vice versa is often referred to as a “town gown relationship” (Bruning).
It seemed such a shame to me that the Potsdam students I sampled didn’t seem to know about or enjoy other places in town, Ives Park in particular. I found myself growing increasingly frustrated. I wanted people to care about the places that meant so much to me. However, upon further reflection, I found myself being the culprit in one of my own irritations. Next semester I will be attending SUNY Geneseo. When I was considering my admission there, I only took the reputation of the college into account. The surrounding community had no sway over me. As a local student in Potsdam, I wanted people to care about the town and community. It was special to me, and I wanted the incoming students to see that. Yet I was preparing to enter Geneseo with the same attitude that I perceived the students to have about Potsdam. To the local high school students at Geneseo, I would have been just another incoming college student who would have failed to see the potential that Geneseo the town has to offer.
As the spring semester draws closer, I am finding myself eager to be at Geneseo. I will be experiencing my first taste of freedom because I was living at home for this semester. I anticipate being able to try new experiences and broaden my horizons, but I am also determined that I will show Geneseo the same respect that I wanted students to show towards Potsdam. Hopefully because of the unique situation that I was in this semester, I will be able to incorporate the independence of college and an appreciation of the town surrounding SUNY Geneseo.
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