By Osiel Ocampo ’26
Listen Listen Listen to All I Want is You
Faint but sturdy, I hear the sounds of the Hive from Sumner Hall, Office of Admissions. I hear wheels against linoleum and carpeted floors, the ripping and transfiguring of tape, the pressing of button pins, and the whooshing of automatic sliding doors.
On tours, the Hive is my favorite main attraction. I call to the audience and say “notice how every inch of this space is utilized,” pointing to the beanbags, lamps, and outlets behind the staircase. “Notice the walls,” as we walk past one of the many chalk walls, “this is a place where drawing and writing on the walls and windows is encouraged.” As we make our way into the Vault, I say “no overhead lighting is allowed in this room,” light from lamps and pendant lights illuminate this space. It’s intimate and cozy.
I offer the reminder that although the Hive is on Pomona’s campus it is truly a Claremont Consortium resource. A place to play alongside peers from Scripps, Harvey Mudd, Claremont McKenna, Pitzer, Claremont Graduate University, Keck Graduate Institute, and the wider Claremont city community. I usher the group into the Sewing Shed and begin to recite “this is the ideal place for you if you ever had an interest in working with fiber.
The Hive employs knowledgeable students from across the Consortium to staff these spaces and to directly help you with whatever you may need. Here your coworkers are from Scripps, Pitzer, Harvey Mudd, and Claremont McKenna.” Leaving the Sewing Shed we enter the Toolbox “the perfect space to explore wood working, metalsmithing, and power tools. Similarly, a student in the consortium will be the one directly helping you and making sure you remain safe.”
In the hallway, I make sure to point out the wall of failure, “this is a place that celebrates failure right alongside success, if you failed it means you tried, and you can never go wrong with trying.” We briefly enter the Commons and I say “pay attention to the furniture in the Hive, a majority of it is on wheels so that users of the space can create configurations that suit their needs.”
I end it all by proclaiming that “the Hive is a radical space that is both for leisure and academics. Some of the Environmental Analysis department is housed here and Human Centered Design classes are regularly taught here.
The Hive is whatever you make it out to be, whatever you desire, whatever you need it to be, and whatever you can dream or think of. A space quite like no other.”