Gilman's study spaces build community

Three years ago, my friend Leah and I sat in the Gilman Atrium, just two freshmen discussing our newfound love for our favorite campus building. Eventually these kinds of conversations spread to our small group of friends who also spent a lot of time in Gilman. On a whim, I decided to make a Facebook group for us to use to communicate about Gilman. I invited maybe 10 people, wrote up a dramatic group description, made up a goofy Marx-inspired title and published the group within the Johns Hopkins community, allowing anyone with a Hopkins email to join. Three years later, almost 200 people have joined “Gilman Lovers Unite.”

There are many reasons why Gilman is the best building on campus. First of all, there is a selection of locations. When you’re feeling chatty and looking for background noise, go the Atrium; when you’re looking for peace and quiet, go to the Hut. There is a variety of seating options too: rectangular tables, round tables, marble tables, stone tables, comfy chairs, comfy couches, weird bright orange chairs and metal chairs. My favorite, the rectangular tables in the Hut, are the perfect height and length for me to be able to put up my feet on the chair across from me.

Gilman is quiet but sunny, unlike the depths of the Milton S. Eisenhower (MSE) Library. When I asked fellow Gilman Lover Danielle her favorite part of the building, she painted a beautiful mental picture of sitting in a comfy chair facing outside as the sun shines through the stained-glass windows. It was the perfect place for an Instagram photo or for a nap.

All of this being said, you can also eat in Gilman — perhaps the most essential difference between Gilman and the MSE.

But really, the best thing about Gilman is the community. I’ve met friends in Gilman and grown closer to old friends through our shared time here. I’ve spent countless hours working in solidarity with strangers here, sometimes making up nicknames or backstories for them. I’ve even been asked out by a stranger here. I’ve developed so many Gilman crushes here — when you like someone solely based on their apparent work ethic. I’ve made up terms like Gilman crushes.

The page I started as a joke is now an actual community space. People post in it looking for lost chargers and water bottles and announce events, especially ones with free food that don’t require students to leave the building. Malka, head of the Gilman Yearbook, has posted some excellent profiles of Gilman Lovers to the page. People offer each other the leftover food that they don’t want to throw out. Fine, this is primarily done by me. But I was right that someone would want those six mushy blueberries! I think I know every Gilman Lover’s pickle preferences at this point, having given away so many Charles St. Market pickles.

As much as I love giving away leftover food (which, as any Gilman regular knows by now, is a lot), the Gilman community means more to me than that. It can be tough to do all of the school work demanded by Hopkins. Sometimes, I think everyone feels like they are the only one working so hard and under so much stress. Having a community of like-minded students at my side has made it so much easier for me to get through the seemingly endless and sometimes futile readings, papers and projects. Everyone in the Gilman community also works hard and studies often. We have spent so many nights together here, often until security kicks us out at midnight, only to come back together at the same tables the next day.

We don’t just do work together, we support each other in getting through the work and the stress. As the center of the humanities on campus, people here don’t question the value of studying something that may not lead directly to a job. We want to learn from each other. We all ask each other “What are you working on?” and “How is it going?” and we actually care about the answers. We celebrate when someone finishes a paper or a thesis and provide words of encouragement to get each other there. We take study breaks together. Years ago Joseph, the current King of Gilman, led a game of human Pacman around the quad for a study break, which is still one of my favorite Hopkins memories. We laugh through the work together.

As far as I can see, Hopkins will never cease to be a lot of work. We will always be assigned too much reading, have a bunch of papers due all at once, and need to finish up that major research project we’ve spent years on. The workload and the dedication to doing quality work is not going to change.

What’s important and often forgotten at Hopkins is to make sure to have a community to get through it all with. We need solidarity in those late hours. We need to see the same people in the Hut every day and know that they have a lot to do too. We need someone to offer us a snack and to ask how our project is going. We need people to smile at while struggling over a complicated reading.

So take a study break. Give out cookies to strangers. Talk to the people around you and make new friends. Do that zany thing you never thought could be something real, and end up running a Facebook page for 200 people. Find your community and cherish it. Gilman Lovers, Unite!