Our Community
College is the perfect time to learn about yourself and the people around you, and Middlebury students have an immense sense of community.
Middlebury definitely feels like a community.
There are very few places where you can go where the professors, the students, the staff all live in one community.
We’re completely isolated, but that’s also a good thing.
It creates an environment where you’re encouraged to learn from each other.
It’s an atmosphere of warmth. It’s a feeling that I really fit here. It’s a fit, kind of puzzle piece fit, into this kaleidoscope of people from all over the place.
My name is Sarah Chapin. I’m a dance major and a Portuguese minor. I’m from Raleigh, North Carolina.
This is the swing dance club. We get together every week and dance and have a great time. There’s something about dancing together that just is this friendship forming super glue. That’s, I think, part of the reason I love it is because it’s so easy to form such a strong community.
We’re kind of both a big and a small community. We’re big in the sense that I feel like I’ll still be meeting people when I graduate. I meet new people every day, but at the same time, we all kind of recognize that it’s a small community. So everybody really tries to make everyone feel like they’re a part of that.
And because we’re all so central, everyone lives on campus. Everybody’s kind of here all the time. People invest in each other and really work to create the best community they can, because this is the one we have. And it’s so important to all of us. There’s this quintessential Vermont charm.
Very down to earth. Earthy, crunchy, local, vegetarian, organic, everything.
Very environmentally friendly and like healthy and wanting to be outdoors.
Very liberal, very open environment, and I think-
Vermont is a place where everyone can find a home for themselves, where everyone is accepted and that really comes through on campus.
There’s definitely a history of here, of community. I mean, if you’re living in this climate, you kind of have to look out for your neighbor because there will be a point when you need your neighbor to look out for you.
It’s amazing to me that people with such different backgrounds and experiences and kind of ideas about the world, when we’re together, we fit so perfectly.
The level of comfort that I have with the people I’m close to here, there is definitely a sense of this life-long friendships being formed here. I mean, I know without a shadow of a doubt that 50 years down the road, we’ll still be laughing at the same things.
It’s so good to know that every time we get together, it’s never like any time passes between those times.
I’ve made really, really tight friends here.
People you can laugh with and people you can play sports with and sometimes those two combine and sometimes they don’t combine but.
Friendships that would last.
I think will last forever.
I mean, I think I’m just continually surprised by how much I love it here. I mean, you’d think I’d be used to it, but I’m not. I love being able to study and feel like I’m sitting in a scenic overlook.
I love that the dining hall puts maple syrup in every food they make. I love that I can go sledding to class. I love crunching through the leaves in the fall and jumping in puddles in rain boots. I love that every time my family visits they’re blown away and want to apply here.
I love that I get to be a part of that every day.
There’s a word in Portuguese that isn’t really translatable into English, saudade. And it means nostalgia for the present. That feeling you have of, right before you’re about to leave or right before someone’s about to leave you, of longing and of knowing that you will miss this moment.
I get that feeling all the time of knowing that I will miss this place so much when I leave.
Add us to your list!
You can apply to Middlebury using the Common Application or the Coalition Application, so add us to your list of My Colleges. There’s no writing supplement, and you may be eligible for a fee waiver.
We’re processing applications now, so we hope to see yours soon!