Creating and Joining Communities
First-Year David Seering builds an esports club and finds home.
Many students leave their home and family when they go away to college. When David Seering ’21 came to Elmhurst College, he found his.
A first-year student majoring in finance and economics, Seering belongs to a fraternity and is a founding member of Elmhurst College’s first esports club. Walking around campus, he feels comfortable and at ease, and was surprised at how quickly he began to recognize people and make friends.
Part of the reason for his surprise is that his life up until this point had not been so easy. His parents separated when he was a toddler, and eventually he moved in with his grandparents. They never became close, though, and “I lived in my own shell,” he says.
In high school, he grew increasingly involved in esports, or multiplayer video game competitions. Seering became a top-ranked player of the game League of Legends, and mentioned it on his application to Elmhurst.
His ranking got him noticed once he arrived on campus, and he was invited to help start the College’s first esports club. Elmhurst College esports has 12 members and Seering is the captain. The teams scrimmage twice a week against other schools from the Northern Conference, and on Saturday, Jan. 20, they’ll play their first match of the collegiate League of Legends season—against Notre Dame.
Seering is proud to have played a role in helping to form a new student community. He also has found a community of his own in his fraternity, Lambda Chi Alpha. The brothers who live on campus, like him, are always together. “I love having all these guys I can lean on and hang out with.”
He says the best part about being at Elmhurst has been finding a place where he finally feels at home. “I love how close everyone is on this campus. I definitely found a family here.”