Life on Campus
Day Students
One often hears day students say they enjoy “the best of both worlds.” Apparently, this phrase means that they enjoy all of the benefits of the Middlesex program while sleeping at home with the family dog under the bed. While it would be wrong to maintain that one world is superior to the other, we can say that the gravitational pull of Middlesex for day students is both significant and benevolent. We want day students to be here to profit from the full experience of a residential school, and we part with them grudgingly.
Though Middlesex is oriented towards a 24-hour-a-day living experience, day students form a critical mass crucial to the School’s strength. They participate in the life of the School through our four-day houses: Winsor, Bateman, Estabrook, and Lowell. These houses organize day students into groups approximately the size of boarding houses (25-30) for the purpose of community life programming, student activities, and pure bonding.
Day students participate in all areas of school life. At night you’ll find day students huddled with boarders in the library for a group study session. On Saturday afternoons day students and boarders alike fill the stands of the hockey rink as they cheer for the Zebras. Afterwards, they’ll all head to the dining hall for some dinner before the school-wide dance.
Day students come from many surrounding communities and from varying distances, all adding significantly to the diversity of talent, background, and character of the school. Our day students are a crucial part of the school’s present and past, and we profit from the distinctive features of their universe just as we hope they will profit from the distinctive features of ours.
Residential Life
When a senior proctor stops by your room at night to check on you, it’s not necessarily time for bed. It’s time to catch up and chat about how your basketball game went. It’s a chance to continue a friendly debate that started on the common room couches. It’s an opportunity to share excitement about the weekend and get some advice on what to wear to the upcoming dance. Sometimes check-in is an occasion for freshly baked cookies, the aroma wafting down from the faculty residence down the hall.
Check-in is more than a headcount because our dorms are more than just bedrooms and common areas. They’re closely knit communities of approximately 25-30 students, two or three resident faculty members, their families, and the occasional lovable pooch or indifferent cat. Your dorm is a team, a social club, a study group, and a sanctuary. Most of all, it’s home. Eventually, it will be time for the lights to go out; home is about healthy habits as well. But for now, a moment with a trusted adult or proctor or friend might be just what you need for a good night’s sleep.
Single Hero
