Each week, one of my classes requires a lab period in which a small number of students meet and discuss topics of varying significance that are relevant to the course.

The objective of this particular class is to learn about the inner-workings of the complex science of ourselves as humans, and because of this the course is incredibly interactive among the students enrolled. For the purpose of the class, my respective classmates and I were recently faced with the task of opening up to each other on a highly emotional level.

Throughout a week on campus, my 40,000+ peers and I travel in and out of classes, many of which concentrate hundreds upon hundreds of students. While some students may have some friends in their classes, for whatever reason, it has become more and more evident to me that most of my classmates are just unnamed familiar faces that I see on an every-other-day basis.

When I do talk to them (an action which commonly feels forced), the conversation is dull and the topic rarely ever ventures outside of academics. What I find funny, however, is that within the hustle and bustle of a typical school week, I spend about as much time with classmates as I do my friends, however, I barely know anything about my classmates or who they are outside of the classroom.

So as my lab group began what was to be a very unusual class period within the grand scheme of our modern academic standards, I found myself feeling more comfortable than I had predicted. Minute after minute, I learned new things about each of my classmates, things which I would never have guessed given the information I had previously gathered (which in reality was virtually nothing).

Even though I see this group of people considerably often, it took nearly an entire semester to learn anything valuable about any of them.

Although most students would attest to the fact that they go to class in order to gather knowledge, it’s worth it to make conversation with those whom you share a space with for an entire semester.

Because it took me so long to form any sort of connection with those who have been in my science class since the beginning of the semester, I’ll admit that I uncontrollably formed my own set of judgments about each person. These preconceptions were not necessarily negative, rather just my mind grasping for any sort of information about the people that I place myself next to every class period.

Just a few days ago, I learned about each of them in an entirely new light and now consider some of them friends. Although there’s no feasible to way to actually get to know each and every person you are enrolled in a class with, as students sharing an experience we should make an effort to get to know those we surround ourselves with rather than make false judgments.