The University of Michigan offers the unique opportunity to participate in a residential living/learning program, where one lives in a dorm with a focus on a certain subject area or belief system.  The Lloyd Hall Scholars Program (LHSP) is a program designed for students interested in pursing their passion for writing and visual/performing arts. I had an interesting experience with this program; I lived in Alice Lloyd Hall my freshman year (the dorm where this program is housed), but I was not a member of LHSP. I lived on the same floor as all the students in the program, but I found myself excluded from the program’s benefits. I was surrounded by incredibly talented dancers, writers, actors and artists, while I found myself struggling to draw a proportional Economics graph or writing the thesis to my Political Science paper.       

            The LHSP students have to fulfill certain requirements to remain in the program and dorm. One of these requirements was to take a class in Alice Lloyd hall. There were many options for students (creative writing, film, ceramics, dance), but the class that always stood out to me was a drawing and painting class that two of my best friends took second semester freshman year. Every Tuesday and Thursday at 6pm, they would take the elevator down four flights to the beautiful Lloyd art studio. I would watch through the glass window as 20 students, sitting on high metal stools, would create beautiful works of art every week on their 27x30 easel, and I would imagine the life of a LHSP student. Whether they were figure drawing from a live model or painting a scenic view, the LHSP students were always learning new ways to stretch their imagination and think outside the box. The rows of acrylic paints, the bins of pastels, and the walls covered in student’s work juxtaposed the brown floor and tables. Although the art studio was an artificially lit room is in the basement of a dorm, there was always a creative energy that circulated within those four walls and also emanated throughout the entire dorm. I wish I could have been a part of the learning and creativity that occurred in the Lloyd art studio, but instead I watched as an outsider and did my calculus homework.