"Finding Home": Bill Loller P'27
"Now a junior environmental sciences major, Emma has made Bryn Mawr entirely her own."
"Now a junior environmental sciences major, Emma has made Bryn Mawr entirely her own."
The college search process truly began during Emma's junior year at Los Gatos High School, though the seeds had been planted much earlier.
Between her demanding schedule of Varsity Volleyball and her club team, Emma was learning what it meant to be part of a community, to support and be supported, to lead and to follow. She was also discovering what she wanted her next chapter to look like.
"I want to get out of California," she told us one evening. "I want to experience something completely different."
We understood. Having spent so much time visiting Emma's paternal relatives in Maryland over the years, the East Coast had become familiar territory for our family. The change of seasons, the history embedded in every brick building, the distinct rhythm of life there, it all appealed to Emma in ways that California, for all its beauty, didn't quite satisfy. But more than geography, Emma was searching for a particular kind of educational experience.
Her environmental science interests had been sparked years earlier during a transformative middle school experience at the Island School program. That immersive learning environment, which is hands-on, collaborative, and deeply connected to place, had shown her what education could be when it engages the whole person.
She wanted that same sense of purpose and community in college, combined with rigorous academics that would prepare her to tackle the environmental challenges facing our world.
As Penn alumni ourselves, we thought we had Emma's college trajectory mapped out: she'd follow in our footsteps to an Ivy League school, perhaps even to the University of Pennsylvania itself. But Emma, as she often does, had other plans.
So, we dutifully took Emma to tour Penn, and she dutifully humored us. We walked the campus where we had met and built the foundation for our own lives. But even as we pointed out our favorite spots and shared our stories, we could see that Emma was imagining something different for herself. She wanted smaller. More intimate. A place where she could know her professors and classmates, where she wouldn't get lost in lecture halls of hundreds of students.
The search narrowed to schools that could offer that intimate academic experience: Smith, Swarthmore, and Bryn Mawr. Each had its own appeal, its own distinct personality. But when Emma first walked onto Bryn Mawr's campus, something shifted. Maybe it was the Gothic architecture nestled among those magnificent trees. Maybe it was the students we met who spoke passionately about their research, their traditions, their tight-knit community. Or maybe it was simply that Emma could envision herself there—not as a continuation of her parents' story, but as the author of her own.
The Bryn Mawr traditions particularly captivated her imagination. Lantern Night, with its ceremony of light passing from class to class, symbolizes the transmission of knowledge and community across generations. May Day, celebrating spring and scholarship in equal measure. These weren't just events on a calendar; they were rituals that bound the community together across time, connecting current students to alumnae stretching back generations.
Now a junior environmental sciences major, Emma has made Bryn Mawr entirely her own.
She's continued her volleyball journey, playing Varsity all three years and finding in her teammates the same camaraderie and support she valued in high school but deeper, more meaningful, forged through late-night study sessions and shared traditions as much as through practices and matches.
"She wanted a place that would challenge her intellectually while supporting her completely; that would honor traditions while encouraging innovation, that would give her both roots and wings."
This spring, Emma is studying abroad at the Umbria Institute in Perugia, Italy, bringing her environmental science studies into a global context while immersing herself in a completely different culture. It's exactly the kind of opportunity that drew her to Bryn Mawr in the first place, giving her the chance to push beyond comfortable boundaries, to see the world from new perspectives, to grow in unexpected directions.
Looking back on our college search journey, we realize that Emma knew what she needed better than we did. As parents and Penn alumni, we had our own vision of what higher education should look like. But Emma was searching for something more personal, more intentional. She wanted a place that would challenge her intellectually while supporting her completely; that would honor traditions while encouraging innovation, that would give her both roots and wings.
Bryn Mawr has been all of that and more. It's given her a community that celebrates her achievements on the volleyball court and in the classroom. It's given her professors who know her name and her dreams. It's given her traditions that connect her to generations of remarkable women who have walked through Pembroke Arch before her. And it's given her the confidence to forge her own path from California to Pennsylvania, from the volleyball court to environmental science labs, from Bryn Mawr to Italy and wherever her journey leads next.