BeCarleton: One Fellow’s BeReals Thus Far

I can only imagine that most of you are well acquainted with the breakout social media app BeReal, popularized in early 2022. If you’re unfamiliar, let me break it down for you – every day at a random time, you get a notification on your phone, and you take a photo of whatever it is you’re doing at the time. If you miss the two minute window to post, you can share your photo later. I’ve been taking photos at random times in my day for over a year now, and have captured some quintessential Carleton moments – I thought I’d share some of my favorites.

Classic Carleton Captures

A Burton Dining Hall breakfast of oatmeal raisin pancakes and fruit is a great way to fuel up for a day of classes. It’s not on camera but there’s almost certainly a mug of coffee off to the side! Burton is one of our two dining halls on campus – both have their loyal fans. I personally frequent both regularly, but I think the breakfast at Burton is superior.

A class time moment – this was at the very beginning of my Intro to American Studies class in the winter, one of the required classes for my major. You can see students filtering into this lecture classroom, located upstairs in Leighton Hall. As someone with a very interdisciplinary major, I’m never confined to one building, which is a huge perk in my eyes. This is in winter term, as you can tell by the coats!

One of my favorite study spaces on campus is our Record Library, a resource of our student-run radio station. Home to a huge collection of vinyl records and CDs, it’s a great place to be as a music lover, and is right next door to our radio studio. It’s also home to our KRLX Board meetings, which I’ve been a part of for over a year.

Every year Carleton hosts our Spring Concert (affectionately known as Sproncert) where a variety of musical artists come to put on an awesome show for our students. I was on the Sproncert committee this year, so it was especially rewarding to see the efforts of our Student Activities Office come together into a great event.

When I’m not in class, you can find me working in the Music Department and practicing violin. As a member of the Carleton Orchestra, I devote a couple hours a week to practice in order to make sure I’m concert-ready. My job in the music department also allows me to listen to all sorts concerts, which is one of my favorite things about the job.

Lastly, I love to get my exercise in as a member of the Carleton Equestrian Club Team. I’ve been riding since I was 5 years old, and it’s a great privilege to be able to continue that at Carleton. We have a great relationship with a local barn that allows me to keep up my sport, and I love all the horses there!

I hope this gives you a good idea of some of the things Carleton students get up to during the average term! These snapshots of life at Carleton are, for better or for worse, extremely real.

Quinn (she/her/hers) has deep love of the Carleton community; she says she is so lucky to be surrounded by such brilliant and kind people. She is currently majoring in American Studies and has a Chinese Minor. Quinn is an active member of student-run radio station KRLX, the orchestra, equestrian club, and the music department! Following her love of music and radio, her favorite place on campus is the record library. And finally, a fun fact about Quinn is that her family helped to found the Minneapolis St. Patrick’s Day Parade!