So much learned, and in just one little year
Andrew Leggatt
Issue date: 5/1/08 Section: Opinion
It's so strange to think that, come fall, we, the freshmen, won't be the newbies anymore. We'll be the older students who know how to work the system-or at least, that's how the new freshmen will see us. And we'll look at them and most likely see a bunch of clueless adolescents wandering and being herded around like a bunch of baa-ing sheep. (I don't mean to say that they'll be complacent or anything-just that we'll probably see them as amusingly foolish at first, as they're trying to find their place on campus, both figuratively and literally).
And we'll see something very formative from the outside perspective for the first time, something all of us, I would assume, have been going through this year. That is, college changes you. Or maybe being comparatively independent does-living away from home for the first time, or, like me, doing something no one else in your family has really ever done before. And looking back, I can't help but think about how much I've changed, how different my life is from what I thought it would be like a year ago. I actually had no idea what was going to go down, a year ago, but my life has still been radically changed. Part of that may be the specific circumstances of my own life, both here and at home, but I can't help but think part of this is universal.
Of course, maybe you expected to get here all your life, and it's all just par for the course. Or maybe you became disillusioned, because it wasn't everything you expected. Maybe you're one of those people who didn't want to hurt your family by separating from them and went home every weekend, or maybe even commuted. Maybe your parents were controlling and couldn't let go, or maybe you still cared too much what they wanted for you and didn't dare to be yourself.
Every person has a different experience, which makes me wonder how, coming from so many different backgrounds, we have influenced each other. That's one really great thing about getting to know so many new people from different social, economic, ethnic, religious, political or orientational backgrounds-it changes your perspective, your knowledge of the world. One thing that still surprises me is how so many people here, younger than myself, have done and experienced so much more than my denied self. People who have been in theater or played instruments for as long as I've wanted to, who speak five languages or actually wrote a paper longer than five pages before they got here. People who grew up in different countries, different states, even just different neighborhoods. One of the great things about college is this sort of coming together of a comparatively wide selection of human experience.
And we'll see something very formative from the outside perspective for the first time, something all of us, I would assume, have been going through this year. That is, college changes you. Or maybe being comparatively independent does-living away from home for the first time, or, like me, doing something no one else in your family has really ever done before. And looking back, I can't help but think about how much I've changed, how different my life is from what I thought it would be like a year ago. I actually had no idea what was going to go down, a year ago, but my life has still been radically changed. Part of that may be the specific circumstances of my own life, both here and at home, but I can't help but think part of this is universal.
Of course, maybe you expected to get here all your life, and it's all just par for the course. Or maybe you became disillusioned, because it wasn't everything you expected. Maybe you're one of those people who didn't want to hurt your family by separating from them and went home every weekend, or maybe even commuted. Maybe your parents were controlling and couldn't let go, or maybe you still cared too much what they wanted for you and didn't dare to be yourself.
Every person has a different experience, which makes me wonder how, coming from so many different backgrounds, we have influenced each other. That's one really great thing about getting to know so many new people from different social, economic, ethnic, religious, political or orientational backgrounds-it changes your perspective, your knowledge of the world. One thing that still surprises me is how so many people here, younger than myself, have done and experienced so much more than my denied self. People who have been in theater or played instruments for as long as I've wanted to, who speak five languages or actually wrote a paper longer than five pages before they got here. People who grew up in different countries, different states, even just different neighborhoods. One of the great things about college is this sort of coming together of a comparatively wide selection of human experience.
Be the first to comment on this story