Like me, living on your own for the first time in a new community full of diversity can be horrifying, yet worth experiencing. You meet different people and face new things here on Mason’s campus that will totally shock you (one being the long line of people in the JC’s Starbucks at 10:30 am in between classes). But one thing for sure throughout this big campus full of diverse people and unaccustomed ways, the people here can always spot out the new kids on the block – the freshmen. Here are five signs that I’ve personally tried to avoid in my first week of college life that single out my “newbie” status.
1. You don’t know where anything is
Mason’s campus is large. More than three times in the first two weeks, I found myself and many of my freshman peers getting lost trying to find a specific lecture hall or how to get to the RAC which is surprisingly all the way on the other side of campus. And as freshmen, we don’t want to ask anyone where anything is so we walk around campus in circles until the person in the club booth we’ve passed four times notice that we are lost and actually offers their assistance while also attempting to persuade us to join their organization.
2. You walk the slowest on campus
This is the major giveaway – freshman walk the slowest on campus. We find yourselves walking at a constant pace on the way to our next class when we notice the person that we saw leave the building behind us is now 50 feet in front of us.
(Note to self: walk a little faster because the upperclassmen have somewhere to be.)
3. You show up to a party more than an hour late
Being fashionably late is okay in some circumstances, but not here at Mason. Us freshmen don’t want to look too eager to be invited to an upperclassmen party, so we show up late on purpose just to find out that it’s the biggest mistake of the night. By the time we arrive, everyone has already had their fun and is ready to go to the next party. We on the other hand have now ruined a perfectly good outfit and lost $20 ubering there and right back home or waited 2 hours for a shuttle back home.
4. You nervously look for a table to sit at in the JC
By eleven o’clock, the Johnson Center is packed with hungry savages trying to beat the line in Panera or studious students trying to get a study break in between classes. By the time we’ve decided where to eat and gotten our food, the hunt for a seat begins. Eventually, we find yourselves on the third floor of the JC in a random study room eating by yourselves with no one to talk to because we have no friends yet.
5. You wear Mason apparel every single day
By the time Welcome Week is over and we have mischievously given every club our spam email address just to get a t-shirt, we are anxious to express our Mason pride as new college students. So every day for the next month, we make use of those club shirts (that we necessarily didn’t want to join) with a fancy pair of pants while the upperclassmen silently judge us in their basic tees and sweatpants.
But don’t worry guys, you still have 50 more new shirts to wear and a lot more disguising to do before we can left the “Freshman Hex” off our backs.
Photo by Alexis Glenn/Creative Services and George Mason University