Dear Incoming Freshmen,
You may hate your first semester at NYU. I know I did. The city is going to be isolating – depressing, even. Some of you may even decide that it’s not for you – you may decide that the dazzling Big Apple lights and endless opportunities wasn’t all it cracked up to be. Although no one tells you it at Accepted Students Day, there are a lot of people who come to NYU and lose all sense of what it means to be a normal college student, and they throw in the towel. One third of my freshman year floor ended up transferring, and I considered it hard after a less-than-expected year. I re-opened my Common App account at the beginning of my sophomore year. I had everything I needed: teacher recommendations, tour dates set, my resumes finalized. But something made me stay.
It took my first big internship for me to find my mold in the city. As I arrived at a 6 am call time for a photo shoot, worked my butt off opening pins and steaming skirts, and collapsed at the end of the day in my bed, I realized that despite the late nights, stress, and set backs, I wouldn’t trade this life for anything. Often times, I was watching Netflix on a Friday night instead of going out. I was throwing on stilettos that wrecked my feet and ironing a stiff blazer instead of lacing up Converse for a football game. Between interning, a part-time retail job, and 18 credits of class, I was working seven days a week instead of lounging on a quad with sorority sisters. No one who goes to a “normal” college could understand the thrill I found in pure exhaustion. But the thing is when your life gets to a point where every corner you turn is unexpected, that’s when you realize you’re in no average environment. Being a workaholic didn’t give me a thrill – being a New Yorker did.
I can’t describe the certain euphoria that comes from walking through the doors of a national magazine, fashion brand, or newspaper every day and getting that ‘pinch me’ feeling. YOU worked for this, and YOU achieved it. You commute on the subway like an adult and watch the sunrise. The average college student sleeps in, but you don’t.
And yes, you can get this feeling by still going to another college. You could stay summers in New York and do just as much as we NYU students do internship wise. But that’s not what’s satisfying. Their visits are brief, and ours are for four years. This is our home.
At the end of a long day you board on a crowded subway and watch the melting pot of people suffocate you to no means. You wobble in heels until you collapse on a small bed in an even smaller apartment with no doorman, graffiti on the building, and a dripping air conditioning unit. You may even butt heads with a few roaches now and then. But then you take a taxicab downtown to meet your friends, and you’re watching the lights of the Brooklyn Bridge pass by your window. You’re walking down 5th Avenue everyday and seeing the Empire State building illuminate every night. On your graduation day, its infinite stories will glisten purple for YOU.
And that’s not where the fun ends. You’re touring the New York Freaking Times for class. You’re taking field trips to Central Park for “educational” purposes (for my class, it was to write about grass). You have macarons at your disposable every hour of the day, and don’t even get me started on 99 cent pizza at all hours of the night. You can get turned down from every swanky Meat Packing dance club possible and end up in a shitty dive bar on your Saturday night, but you know what? You’ll love it. You’ll find the things and the people that ground you in an exalting and exhilarating city that never sleeps. Before you get lost in the crowd, just look around and remember where you are. Bad days can never actually be bad when you’re in the right place, and New York can be that for you if you let it.
My last pieces of advice: do more than Times Square. In fact, don’t even go there. Don’t be afraid of Brooklyn or Queens. Go to Coney Island. Don’t stress about Writing the Essay. We ALL hated it. We ALL survived it. Welcome Week isn’t an accurate portrayal of how your time will be spent at NYU (except your first orientation at Radio City Music Hall – now that’s cool).
You’ll learn and grow and become a New Yorker all on your own. You’ll make friends outside of the forced orientation events, whether they are in your dorm or in your classes. You’ll find your secret special study spot in the village.
A time will come when you’ll go home for the summer and be sad to see the city skyline retreating in the distance. Even if this moment doesn’t happen until the end of sophomore year, trust me that it will. I may only be junior, but this much I know.
HCXO,
Madison