The Residents of Cliff Apartments at the University of South Carolina are being forced to move out in the middle of the 2019-20 school year. After just beginning to find their home at Carolina, about 300 first year students will be forced to make this transition yet again. This is extremely unfair of a typically top notch and respectable university. 

As stated in the Daily Gamecock article on the topic, “We know that students who  live on campus typically become more engaged members of the community and perform better academically”, which is most definitely true. Another thing that living on campus does for first year students is create a sense of community and allow them to make their first friends at college, some of whom will go on to become bridesmaids, godparents, and lifelong best friends. By tearing down Cliff in the middle of the school year, you are cutting these experiences short for a sizeable amount of the Class of 2023. Many of us have just started to create real bonds with the other residents in this building, yet we are being denied the experience of living together for an entire academic year.

As you and I should both know, freshman year of college can be a hard transition for many. Mental health can waiver, and students often struggle to adjust. Many Cliff residents have moved from distances of over 700 miles and into a brand new culture coming to University of South Carolina, and have just recently began to feel absolutely comfortable in our new home. But now, this university is uprooting us and forcing me to go through this transition all over again? 

At a university that is boasts the number one first year experience, there will be over 300 students that will be torn apart and have their “number one” first year experience cut short. That doesn’t seem very top notch to me.

We hope by through this petition, we can save our freshman year experience and allow our relationships to continue to grow rather than being forced to re live a very hard transition all over again. With the universities plan, most of us will be separated from our roommates and into completely different residence halls that have already created their community. 

All we hope to gain from this is the opportunity to live and grow as a community as college freshman all over the world are able to. Thank you in advance.