Visiting Virtual Case
A corner of an old stone building and the glistening silver roof of the Peter B. Lewis Building appear in a photograph on Case Western Reserve University’s homepage. The photograph is labeled with the words “Visitors: A Guide to Campus.”
Clicking on the picture will give you a glimpse of life at Case; or at least show you a version of life at the university. The caption “Case Western Reserve University is reinventing the college experience” is ironically positioned beside a rotating display of photographs that depict the quintessential college experience. A bright red track loops around a lush green football field, students sit at a table drinking coffee and grinning as the solve calculus problems, brick buildings complement the radiant red and gold leaves of an oak tree, students laugh as they relax on the grassy quad, the sky is always blue and inviting. While Case may be “reinventing the college experience,” the selection of photographs portrays Case as a stereotypically ideal university. Sitting in one of Case’s freshman residence halls, looking out of smudged window panes at a dreary grey sky, I wondered if visitors are disappointed when they see the real campus. After all, the virtual Case can only offer a limited view of reality.
I found the process of browsing college websites and trying to decide where I wanted to go school monotonous. All colleges and universities look somewhat attractive online. In online photographs the grass is always green, the sky is always blue, and students are always smiling. As I have said, Case’s website is no exception. The visitor’s guide to Case claims “Our new model of higher learning inspires renaissance students who merge the liberal arts with science, technology, and professional education in ways that uniquely position them to serve humanity.” According to this statement, Case offers a uniquely diverse education that will prepare students to change the world. Such a statement would sound inspiring if it wasn’t echoed by so many other universities. While Case has an excellent website, it fails to show what the university is like in reality.
I applied to Case before visiting the campus. My opinion of the university was based on the information provided in the website and I honestly did not think I would end up coming to school here. However, after being accepted at Case, I decided to visit the campus. I came to Case on a freezing day in the middle of January. The sky was dark with clouds and the streets were filled with frozen mounds of black snow. After an entire day of walking around campus with numb fingers, I knew this was where I wanted to spend the next four years of my life. It did not matter that the campus wasn’t particularly beautiful in the dead of winter. Something about the real Case appealed to me in a way the glorified online Case did not. Online, Case is merely an academic institution that educates “renaissance students” in order to “position them to serve humanity.” In reality, Case is more than an institution – it is also a home. Flyers on billboards and chalk on sidewalks give Case a personality that separates it from the generic role of the university that is portrayed online. Case’s physical campus may lack the picturesque quality of the virtual Case, but it has a vitality that cannot be replicated online.
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