Our classmates are family

When you talk to SJI alumni, you’ll often hear them say how incredible it was to meet and become friends with their classmates. Before starting bootcamp this week, I spoke to several alumni who echoed the same sentiment: SJI’s bootcamp is intense, the internships are wonderful, and your classmates will become more important to you than you could imagine.

Hearing those things, I never doubted the alumni I spoke with or their lived experiences, but I don’t think any of us believed that we could form such a strong bond over a week of Zoom classes. And that was true: We didn’t form those bonds over the week. We formed them in two days.  

We entered our morning Zoom session Wednesday exhausted from the night before and increasingly anxious for our next Sports Check. But throughout the day, we laughed together, shared stories from our lives, and bonded through every exercise and every homework assignment. We joined group Facetimes, checked in on one another and kept each other calm. In the process, we fell into a rhythm that feels unbreakable.

My classmates have already become part of my family, and they’ve helped me through everything I’ve gone through in the past few days. We’ll only spend a week together, but I know that after this week, I’ll be able to call any one of them any time and rest assured they’ll be there.

The real scandal is the friends we make along the way.

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