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My Lafayette Experience
CONNECTING
My Life After Lafayette
Leaving College Hill
BY NANCY HOCHBERG KAHN '75
I first fell in love with Lafayette when I was
17 years old. I was touring colleges with a friend, 
Best years. Thanks in part to great friends, Nancy Hochberg (in AETT sweatshirt) was on top of the world on College Hill.
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having been told by my parents to look at New Jersey state schools only. My friend and I decided to cross over the Route 22 Phillipsburg bridge to see what was on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River.
I remember looking up at the school on the hill—Colton Chapel and South College towers rising above the tree line. It was a beautiful fall day, and the trees were ablaze with color. When we got up the hill to the Quad, I felt as if I had found a spot where I would want to be—always. The campus was gorgeous, the boys all around me were more gorgeous, and there was no essay on the admissions application. I quickly completed the application, wrote out my check, and neglected to inform my parents that I had applied “early decision” to a school they clearly could not afford. Well, December came, along with my acceptance. Much negotiation followed, but I did indeed return the following fall to spend the next four years of my life at Lafayette.
What were those years like? They were the best years of my life. I loved everything about Lafayette. I loved the campus, the classes, the sports, and of course my friends. Keep in mind that I was a member of the second class of women. I had great girlfriends and guy friends—including the best bunch of adopted brothers one could have ever asked for. I worked hard, and I played hard. I found a mentor in the head of the biology department who allowed me to function pretty much as a grad student at a university would—doing independent research and working as a paid lab assistant. He pushed through the cloud that was surrounding my brain and got it to begin working properly. When I think back to sunny days lying half asleep on the Quad, or late nights studying in a cubicle in the basement of the libes, I smile.
Of course there were some bad things. People don’t grow up without bad things happening. There was that arrogant jerk who broke my heart and left me questioning my own self-worth. There was organic chemistry, which nearly killed me. There was the departure of three of my “brothers” to U Cal, Berkeley. But, through the good times and the bad, I never lost the feeling of happiness that washed over me like sunshine as I crossed the Phillipsburg bridge and looked up at the chapel and the beautiful hill: my home.
On the day following my graduation, a good friend and I sat together on the Quad. It was quiet. Our friends were packing and leaving. We both knew that we would be studying the following fall, having both been accepted at medical schools (he at 40 and me at one). We were used to studying; knowing that we would be studying even harder in the fall was expected and actually anticipated.
The difference was, we would not be studying there, at LC. And that fact was mighty scary. After a while, we stood and hugged and looked longingly at our home. I remember him saying that he didn’t know how to leave. I knew exactly what he meant. I knew the steps—one got in the car, and headed down the hill, back across the Phillipsburg bridge, and onwards. But I did not know how it would feel to leave knowing that I could never come back and have it be exactly the same. That morning I learned. It was pure pain. And when I think of it, my chest hurts as it did on that day three decades ago—as if my heart is breaking.
I have grown up, though many might argue that point. I am an involved alumna of the College. More important, I am mother of a member of the Class of 2007. With God’s help and seven little policemen, he soon will graduate. And this past month I have been feeling a growing anxiety over that fact. The anxiety is mostly for him, but a little is reserved for myself.
During his years at LC, I have once again fallen in
love with a beautiful campus, made even more stunning by new buildings, new football field, new dorms. The libes has been completely redone. On some of my visits with my son, I try to find the carrel in the basement where I used to study, just to sit and think.
I look for the spot on March Field where I first noted the quarter moon sitting low in the sky next to Venus and labeled it my good luck sign. I walk past the cherry trees in full bloom in the spring and remember a concert in Colton Chapel, as well as the spot between Pardee
and Colton where my closest friend told me she had been adopted. I pass my former apartment on March Street, where she and I lived as sophomores, the first coeds to ever move off campus.
I feel at home on campus. I also feel lonely there. Lonely for my Lafayette buddies. Then I look at my son. I see surrounding him a group of young men that remind me so much of my “adopted brothers.” I see how organized he has become. I see how much he has learned. Someone at Lafayette has pushed through the cloud surrounding his brain and has gotten it to work properly. I see how involved he is with his frat and sports. I see how at home he is there. I know he loves Lafayette, and I wonder: Will he feel that pang on the day following his graduation? Will his chest hurt when
he drives his car down the hill for the last time?
Should I tell him—warn him—that no one ever really finds friends again like the ones they had in college? Should I tell him that he will return to campus often, but never to be surrounded by his “brothers,” as he now is? Shall I tell him that he will miss staying up all night just to talk to a girl, or to study for an exam? Shall I tell him that it is during these quiet times, and in this sheltered place, that one grows up? Gets to know and trust themselves and others well? A part of me wants to warn him, but I know this is his journey, and not mine.
For myself, I dread that drive back down College Hill following his graduation. I know I will feel the pain in my chest again. This time it will be for the both of us. It may be a while before I approach the College from the bridge and gaze up at the hill and experience the happiness and sunshine washing over me as I arrive home. As for my son, though my motherly instincts make me want to shield him from the pain, there is no avoiding it. I should reassure him, though, that in the process of studying and living at, and, ultimately, graduating from Lafayette College, it becomes a piece of you, and you a piece of it. And once that happens, it is forever your home. It is a home that will greet you with warmth and sunshine every time you return. And just a little longing, too.
Nancy Hochberg Kahn ’75 is a pediatrician affiliated
with Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, and Brookside Community Health Center in nearby Jamaica Plain. A clinical instructor in pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, she earned an M.D. from Rutgers Medical School after majoring in biology at Lafayette. She and
her husband, Joseph Kahn ’74, live in Wellesley, Mass., and are the parents of two children. Their son, Bryan ’07, received an A.B. with a major in economics and business
at the 172nd Commencement.
In “Connecting,” alumni present first-person reflections that connect their student experiences and lives after college. Submissions are welcomed, as are suggestions for writers.
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