If you’re a young adult, there’s a very real possibility you’ll have to move away from home to go to college.  

This can be extremely intimidating. Leaving your parents and possibly the only home you’ve ever known. Learning that you have to do everything yourself now is kind of a rude awakening. Turns out the paper towel does not just re-spawn after you finished the roll like you thought it did.  

You know what’s also hard when you’re out on your own in a new place? Having a sense of community. So how could you establish a sense of community in a brand-new building, full of strangers in a college dorm? 

When all else fails, one thing that will unite everyone is food.  

It started simply enough.  I wanted to make cookies and didn’t have any eggs. Luckily, in this day and age, you don’t have to embarrass yourself by walking door to door, you can just ask the floor group chat. After acquiring my eggs, I paid my due by trading freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.  

And just like that a lightbulb goes off in my head. I start homing in on perfecting my baking recipes, chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, hot chocolate cookies, and a killer apple crisp. My room now has a reputation. Whenever people come over, they always remark how it smells good in there, even if I haven’t cooked all day.  

I became the BCIT Tall Timer food mafia boss. Everything ran through me. I would trade my baked goods for eggs, chicken stock, chocolate truffles, and various other plants and herbs.  

Just like that, I had fallen backwards into creating a sense of community on my floor.  

Alright, great story, Dean. But why should I care?  

Well, maybe you don’t. But in a world where it’s becoming increasingly harder to create meaningful face to face human connection. And in a city as big and diverse as Vancouver is, it can be hard to have a sense of community as well. 

Culture and community are more than just our nationality or other personal traits. It’s the personal connections we make. It’s how we can support the people around us. 

You might think that’s silly, and about a year and a half ago I would have agreed. But over the summer while working on the radio I got really familiar and invested in my local community. I discovered not only just how tight it was, but how it was to benefit each other.  

It’s building your own community that can make any place, even a tiny college studio apartment, feel like home.