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A Different Kind of Student Stress
Lori Bender
When she moved from her hometown of Boulder, Colorado to New York City to start college a year ago, Bridget wasn’t quite as nervous as she might have been because her older sister was already living in New York. The story of their special sisterhood is a reminder of the importance of staying close to people we love even as we head off on new adventures.
My name is Ellie Lochhead, and I’m a PhD student at New York University. My research at the NYU Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy focuses on policies aimed at alleviating housing challenges faced by the lowest-income renters. Prior to NYU, I earned my M.S. in Economics and Urban Planning at Tufts University and a B.A in Economics and Public Policy at University of Denver.
I’m Bridget Lochhead and I’m entering my second year at Barnard College. I plan on majoring in Computer Science but took a wide variety of classes last year. I graduated from Boulder High School in 2023.
Bridget, What drew you to Barnard when you were looking at schools?
Bridget: I heard about Barnard from Ellie’s roommates in New York, one of whom had gone to Barnard while another went to Columbia. After touring it the spring of my junior year, it just felt right. I definitely had in mind that I wanted to be somewhere close to Ellie for college, and I don’t think I ever would’ve considered moving to New York if she weren’t there.
Ellie, How did you feel when you found out Bridget would attend Barnard?
Ellie: I was sitting in a cafe on a December evening when I got the call from Bridget, and couldn’t believe that this long-standing wish of living in the same city one day was actually going to happen. I was so proud of her, and excited by all the scenarios I started to imagine, like meeting up at that very cafe on random evenings, going to museums and plays together, and getting to take part in each other’s adult lives.
Bridget, did having Ellie nearby help you adjust as a new student on an urban campus?
Bridget: Ellie had a big impact on how I was able to adapt to living in New York. I’d visited her in the city before I moved for school, so having some familiarity with the place itself made it feel much less daunting. It was also so comforting to have someone nearby that I knew would take care of me. Being able to spend a night at her apartment, take a shower without wearing shower shoes, and cook dinner with her was a relief from constantly being on campus. Even if I only saw her occasionally, knowing she was around made me feel much more comfortable in my daily life.
What are the best things about having a sister in the city?
Bridget: It’s definitely a perk to have Ellie bring me along to events that I wouldn’t have attended otherwise, like seeing the cherry blossoms at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens last spring. The best thing for me, though, has been the support from Ellie and all of her friends — it’s made me feel so much more comfortable and willing to fully embrace being in New York.
Ellie: I love watching Bridget learn and love the city in the ways I also did — it’s so fun seeing her show up to the pizza place and expertly order from the counter and pay in cash and eat our two slices standing on the street corner. It’s been a delight to have her meet my friends and do things together, but I also admire how she’s made her own life and friends and routines here. Best of all is getting to unwind on a Friday or a Sunday night at my apartment and take time away from the rest of our lives. We cook dinner, watch movies, call our other sister Mia (who lives in California), and get to feel at home together.
How has your relationship changed this past year?
Bridget: I’ve admired and looked up to Ellie my entire life. Since she left for college, I’ve always been able to picture her living her adult life and interacting with friends and coworkers, but actually getting to see it firsthand has been so special. But I’m most grateful for how our relationship hasn’t changed — we’ve just become a bigger part of each other’s lives.
Ellie: Though I’m a lot older, I’ve always seen Bridget as pretty much my equal, and it’s been cool to put that into practice this year. I enjoy seeing Bridget interact with her friends and the wider Barnard community, and I also get to see her confidently show up to a restaurant in the Village to meet me and my friends and jump into our conversations so seamlessly. I love that we get to drop in on each other’s independent adult lives here, but also still revert to our usual old silliness whenever we please.
What are some of your favorite things to do together in New York?
Ellie: Bridget took some interesting dance and dance history classes last year, and I got to join her for a few cool dance performances around the city. We also saw some Broadway and off-Broadway plays and a lot of movies. We took memorable trips to the New York Botanic Gardens greenhouses in the winter, and the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens when everything was blooming in the spring. I also love the times when we meet up to grocery shop or just sit around at home.
Bridget: The two of us are good at having fun with whatever we end up doing! I’ve loved meeting all of her friends. We went to a Shabbat dinner at her co-worker’s house and made pierogies with her friends for Easter. I’m so lucky that I got looped into such a lovely group of people.
Describe a special memory from the past year, or a time when your sister has really been there for you.
Ellie: I remember it being late November and the semester was intense, the weather was bad, and I wasn’t feeling great in general. Bridget was also deep in her semester, but we both knew exactly what we needed. We met up in Union Square on a Friday night and went to a packed screening of the Beyoncé Renaissance concert film with tons of joyful New Yorkers decked out in cool outfits. After three hours of Beyoncé, we bought a big bag of candy from the Duane Reade and went back to my apartment to curl up under blankets and eat chocolate. It was perfect, and it would have only been that specific kind of perfect with my sister.
Bridget: One of my best memories from this past year was my birthday. Leading up to it I felt melancholy; birthdays were a big deal in my family when I was growing up and it didn’t feel right not being home and with my parents for it. My birthday fell on a Tuesday, and Ellie invited me over the night before. We got takeout, played Scrabble, and baked a cake. The next morning she surprised me with a present and decorations and we called the rest of the family as we ate breakfast. I can’t imagine a better celebration.
Do you have one piece of advice you’d share with any first-time college student, wherever they go to school?
Ellie: One thing I’d recommend to any new college student is to pay attention to your campus newspaper and student radio station. This is a good way to find out what fellow students are talking about, events they’re covering, and their hopes for their campuses and cities. I worked for my college newspaper and found it really interesting to read news and opinion pieces from my classmates on all sorts of topics. Bridget and I both relied a lot on the Barnard/Columbia student radio station during the campus protests last spring and felt a sense of community growing from these student-led projects.
Bridget: My main piece of advice is to stay in touch with people you care about. Everyone talks about how you can reinvent yourself in college, but it can be overwhelming when everything and everyone you’re interacting with is unfamiliar. Having Ellie nearby last year made me realize how grounding it is to be around someone you’ve known your entire life and who you can fully trust — it made it so much easier to feel comfortable exploring new things.
