Tick-Tock, Exeter O’Clock: Time Warp on Campus

By JILLIAN CHENG ‘27

I’ve noticed that time at Exeter passes like nowhere else. A day feels like a week, a week feels like a month, and yet, a month at Exeter passes in the blink of an eye. For me, it’s only lower fall, and yet it’s lower fall. I only just moved in yesterday, and yesterday was two months ago. Time both elongates and squeezes together, as if there is some chemical in our water that warps our perspective of how time passes. But the passing of time isn’t magical here. It all boils down to the structure of Exeter’s schedule and the sheer number of opportunities provided.

I remember distinctly thinking that Exeter felt like an extremely long summer camp my first couple of months of prep year. Every day was packed with fun activities, especially the week of orientation. And as the school was only gradually ramping up, I had more time to socialize and fill my days with lots of nothing. 

However, as the terms dragged on, the slower passage of time also exacerbated my stress when a wave of tests would drag me under. Sometimes, all I wanted was for the week to be over, and I found myself trapped in the present moment.

A big cause for this time warp across campus is the seclusion of the Exeter town. There are plenty of shops and restaurants in town, but we can only travel so far by walking. Additionally, the Exeter radius prevents us from venturing too far from campus. While keeping us all in the warm Exeter atmosphere is cozy and comforting, it inherently keeps us away from the large public.

Our packed schedules also keep us busy enough to forget about the passage of time. No matter if it is a dreaded physics test or a fun formal, any kind of intense events are still “busy work.” In the moment, they are dramatic, anxiety-inducing, and keep us on our toes. Especially for boarders, there seems to be a nonstop stream of events, back to back, and while in the moment they feel never-ending, soon they all go by in a flash, because time doesn’t actually pass any differently. Really, the passage of time is warped by the context of our lives, and at Exeter, our lives are easily described in one word: packed. 

I think this phenomenon is why many of the assembly speakers basically conclude that while they didn’t necessarily love their time here, but in retrospect, Phillips Exeter seems to be the greatest campus they have ever stepped foot on. Sure, many of them found the course rigor difficult, some of them had long periods of depression, but did any of them proclaim their true love every second of their time here? Imagine students from Exeter twenty, thirty, fifty years ago all complaining about how they wished their week would end. And yet they still clink wine glasses at reunions and laugh about the good old days. 

This whiplash effect of alumni claiming that Exeter was the hardest/best//worst experience of their life had me psychoanalyzing my own experience as a current Exeter student. Time does work differently here than home. Getting through piles of busy work and scrambling around campus to different meetings, in the moment, can be monotonous, and time stretches infinitely. Between classes, I complain to friends: “I’m tired. All I want is to sleep. All I want is for this day to end. I can’t wait to graduate.”

However, I’ve noticed when I’m finally away from Exeter, when school has ended and they’ve set us free for only a few weeks, I sincerely miss my friends, my dorm, my classes, and even the busy, hard, monotonous work. I miss routine, the days fading together and the changing of seasons. Walking to class and blasting my playlists. 

Time warp does occur. But that doesn’t mean you should hate living in the present. If anything, I personally feel comforted that soon this current moment will be another wink of a memory. Maybe, in fifty years I’ll return to an Exeter reunion, and this 700 word article will be yet another matter I will laugh about.