When my husband decided that the only business school he really wanted to attend was Tuck in Hanover, NH, he told me that one of the reasons was because of the uniquely close network of students and partners that make up the community. I had heard similar pitches before at other schools, but after just weeks here, I realized that Tuck really owns this claim. Partners are integrated in a way that makes it easy for couples, and other students, to become lifelong friends and I realized very quickly how lucky we were to have this unique opportunity…perhaps for the first and last time since college.
One of the many silver linings I have found at Tuck is the opportunity to make such a close group of friends in such a unique, and maybe even unnatural, environment (see several in the photo above!). My husband and I moved up to Hanover in mid-August, uprooting our lives in Boston, leaving our respective jobs, and saying goodbyes to family and friends. While we aren’t far away, I have felt completely removed from the routine comforts of our previous lives in New York and Boston, with different social circles and professional opportunities, mostly tied to our companies and college friends. Thinking back to college, I’ve realized that my closest friends are all friends that I had met at some point in school, and over the past five years since my graduation, there have been few settings in which to connect with another group of people at a similar place in their lives.
Living at Tuck really is it’s own world. With each orientation activity that passed, we knew more and more names; we recognized more and more faces. It didn’t take long for these unfamiliar names and faces to become good friends, and I realized suddenly that this could be one of the last opportunities in our lives to be able to meet so many new people, from both near and far, and build meaningful and lasting friendships.
Being at Tuck really is a gift of time. Even while the students are constantly busy, and partners are commuting and working during the week, there is a unique bond that draws us all together and I think that everyone in some way or another finds him or herself truly grateful to have this experience again. Perhaps it is even easier than in college to appreciate being here on campus, everyone living nearby once again, knowing the experience of work and life in the “real world”. Maybe it’s being removed from the familiar that makes everyone so eager to get to know each other, and Hanover is one of the most beautiful places in which to do just that.
In our first six weeks at Tuck, I have felt at home. From casual coffee breaks with new friends, to potluck dinners, book club nights, walks in the park with our Tuck dogs, meeting Tiny Tuckies, the Tuck scavenger hunt, and fall formal at the end of September, it really has been a wonderful initiation into the Tuck experience. It is easy to forget as this environment becomes so familiar just how lucky we are to have this time again, and I’m sure that in the spring of 2015 I will be looking back and thinking that these two short years have created a whole new part of our lives…for the rest of our lives.