The building itself reminded her of the way that colleges were often portrayed in the movies, the resolute saneness of New England, the classic elegance of the East, but within its barren hallways she had sensed a broken promise, a corruption of the past. She had chosen Stratham College precisely because it represented to her everything that she’d once believed a college should be. It was situated in a quaint New England town; it advertised a liberal arts curriculum, with an emphasis on diversity and progressive education. It promised passionate professors, and even more passionate students. And yet, when she thought back on it now, when she thought back on those first six months at Stratham College, she realized that she’d spent the better part of those six months in a kind of self-imposed isolation. For one, unlike the rest of the students in her dorm, she had found it very hard to make friends at first. And it wasn’t because she didn’t want to have friends or because she wasn’t social.
