By Balan Selvamuthukumaran ’27
I have mentioned in previous blog posts that I spent nearly the entirety of my freshman summer in Claremont, living in Dialynas Hall for ten weeks while I worked on summer research within the Economics department. I enjoyed the experience so much that I decided to do summer research again sophomore year, summer 2025, partly so I could live in Claremont again. This time, I was even more excited than I had been for my last summer—this time, a lot of my friends, including my girlfriend, were also doing research on campus. I was excited to live with them—it was sure to be a good summer.
Since we were all in Claremont for at least the first weeks of the summer (some were there for longer), we made a lot of plans—trips to the beach, road trips, and so on. One of our favorite spots was San Clemente’s North Beach, a beach that I have written about here in the past. It’s a great beach for boogie boarding, bodysurfing (or regular surfing), and generally hanging out since it is not as crowded as Los Angeles beaches. Four of us also took a road trip up from Claremont to San Francisco, stopping at Pinnacles National Park, camping out in a national forest nearby, and so on. On our way back, we took the Pacific Coast Highway, driving alongside beautiful ocean scenery—we got to see Big Sur, for example!
Besides all of that, I had an amazing time just hanging out with my friends in the suite. The great part about a six-person suite as opposed to your average two-person suite or single room is having a shared space to hang out with friends at any given time. We’d often congregate there on slow nights, just hanging out and talking about everything life had to offer. Though we didn’t have a kitchen in our own dorm, Sontag has one on each floor, and with Frary closed on weekends (yes, we had to eat at Frary everyday otherwise), we made the most of it and cooked something for nearly every meal. Though none of us were experts by any means, we had a great time cooking together and just hanging out—a perfect summer.
