A lot of things are different from high school once you step into the college light, but one thing that hasn’t changed is the bad habit of overlooking the sophomores. The freshmen are all shiny and new, and the juniors are getting into their schools and programs and starting their internships. The seniors are the top-dogs, roaming campus with experience, just about ready to jump into the real-real world. Nothing has changed when it comes to thinking of the sophomores as the black sheep of the student body.
Many people wonder, “What’s so special about the sophomores?” We’re the ugly friend in the group. We don’t get enough credit. But you know what? We deserve it.
Last year we came in terrified with our tails between our legs. Every upperclassmen knows the exact feeling because they’ve all been there too. They all remember being crammed into a dorm room with another human, sharing a mini fridge, deciding if doing your laundry or buying food is more important that day, relearning how to study, trying not to gain those fifteen pounds everyone was talking about, and making new friends. Us sophomores are fresh off of that battle field (no pun intended), and we wear the purple hearts of campus.
And it only got worse for us. Most of the pack is now out of the dorms (some still remain), which means there is no cafeteria or cheap laundry or RA just down the hall to wipe your tears. It’s like being taken from a state prison and transferred into supermax. They don’t call our neck of the woods the “Sophomore Slums” for nothing. Ramen and anything else that can survive more than a 3-week shelf life are all we care about. We have yet to grasp really being on “our own”, and the entire year will be a stumble forward. But we’re going to try our best.
Not to mention, sophomore year is the year where it stops being cute to say “undecided”. Don’t get me wrong, anyone who is still feeling out their future really does still have a lot of time. But remember during freshman orientation, and your first class of the semester, and over holiday break with your family, and then at the end of the year when everyone kept telling you, “Don’t worry, you don’t really have to decide until sophomore year.” Well, it’s now sophomore year, and they didn’t forget what they said just a few months ago.
Basically we have it tough, just like those freshmen, juniors, and seniors. A lot of people don’t give us the credit that’s truly deserved on campus, and no one is flooding us with questions about how our year is going because it’s sometimes seen as an insignificant one. But my fellow sophomores and I are proud to represent the daily struggles that go unnoticed and everything positive that also goes with being us.
We’ll always be compassionate towards the first year students. We obviously get it —we were just in your shoes. We’ll give you directions (especially in Humanities), and we’ll help out with anything you need. We just finally stopped shaking from the nerves that freshman year brought us.
We are incredibly hard workers. As second year students, we have that first one under our belts, and it was rough. Adjusting to the collegiate level was difficult! So this year we have new attitudes and a splash of experience that’s really going to push us to do our best (and probably a couple of Cs that were caused by too many Wine-Wednesdays). We also know what must be accomplished in the future years as juniors and seniors and are ready to be proactive and achieve those goals. It’s not called the comeback year for nothing.
We know the basic campus rules now: sit in the middle of a row if you arrive early for lecture so no one has to awkwardly climb over you. Don’t go out in groups of more than seven. Don’t wear your keys around your neck. Classes at 8:50 a.m. are nearly impossible. Look how much we’ve learned and how far we’ve come!
We are always smiling. The tough upperclassmen years haven’t crushed our perky little souls just yet, and there is still some joy left in there. And we’re just glad to know we aren’t know as “the freshmen” anymore.
So the next time you see a sophomore, tell them you’re proud of them and ask them how they’re doing. Because they’re probably being neglected out there and could use a little love.