Spencer Tait is a freshman in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences.
I stumbled upon the Facebook page GWU Secrets before I even arrived on campus.
The page, which has more than 3,700 Facebook likes, was intriguing for a while – a small, surprising treasure of GW culture. But then it got old. Being inundated by other people’s problems, vices, guilt and confession quickly felt like a burden.
But in the wake of the recent student death on the Mount Vernon Campus, I’ve been doing some thinking, and now see it in a whole new light. Sean Keefer’s father, Christopher, told a group of mourners last month to not “go to a dark place alone.”
We may not think of it that way, but GWU Secrets is some kind of light.
Many people on this campus might argue that the page is nothing more than a place to share salacious gossip, and get dark secrets off their chest behind a mask of anonymity. That’s not entirely true though. At least not to me.
According to the page, somewhere on campus is a student who lost both their parents to cancer in almost the same year without telling anyone, another who helps pay for their tuition by selling drugs, and an endless swathe of people your age with relationship issues and sexual kinks you’ve probably never thought of. Some of it might not even be true.
Reading GWU Secrets can be depressing – but it also gives us a big dose of perspective. If nothing else, it can be an opportunity for personal evaluation.
When people think of GW and college life, the superficial façade of classes, internships and drinking tends to reign. It’s overwhelming, especially for students who struggle to stay grounded in the whirlwind of college.
GWU Secrets is a reminder that there is a deeper and more sensitive collective conscious behind the faces and the grades and the student organization events. It is a reminder that everyone has demons, and many of us unfortunately battle them alone.
The Facebook page and ones like it are how many college students of our generation share our feelings and insecurities in a way that is both private and refreshingly public.
So the next time you’re feeling overwhelmed or invisible at a nightclub or a fraternity party, lost in the swirling mess of booze-fueled escapism, ask yourself what everyone is trying to escape from. GWU Secrets, believe or not, is crucial for understanding what is really happening on campus at the sincerest level. It instills an undeniable element of individualism to a place dominated by such high social expectations.
It is a place of harsh truths, but important truths nonetheless.