College: Survival of the Sleep Deprived

College. Probably one of the weirdest and most simulatory experiences we will ever have in our lifetime. It literally feels like these 4 years are a social experiment designed to teach us lessons in terms of greek life, hangxiety, and hard truths. 

ready, set, go!

Dorm drop-off. Most disorienting thing ever. You literally spawn into a new map, surrounded by new characters, new norms, and a whole new lifestyle. Thousands of strangers all the same age, having the same experience at the same exact time, on the same Wi-Fi. Tell me that’s not some VR headset mind f*ck. You almost immediately find an alliance of the most random set of friends imaginable, and you decide to conquer the dining hall and welcome week together. Just like that, it begins.

Over the next four years, you adapt into this new environment on a continuous loop of trial and error. You’re experimenting with who you want to be, versus who you simply aren’t. For the very first time, you’re generating your OWN self concept. In high school, you typically fall into a box based off of who you grew up around, what your sports or niches were, and not much changes. But here, friend groups are shifting rapidly as you decide who actually clicks with this new version of you. From dorm floor friend groups, to randomly stumbling upon people that make you think “where have you been all my life?” 

When we all are running the same marathon, the trauma bond makes these friendships grow exponentially faster than other periods of our lives. Proximity alone creates friendships that consist of sharing literally every thought that crosses your mind with each other, making these likely your funniest and realest friends yet. And don’t even get me started on the boyfriend that somehow lives a few buildings away, I mean- why would I NOT spend every day with him? (I do). 

campus commandments

I’m currently on year 3 of the world’s best disguised social experiment, and I’ve picked up on certain unwritten laws that everyone’s absorbing without even realizing. Some honorable mentions are as follows: 

1. Lectures, optional. Pregames, mandatory 
2. Campus celebrities. No elaboration necessary. 
3. Collective financial denial (Yes I’m still gonna buy a McChicken drunk after the frat)
4. No good decisions are made after 3am
5. Headphones = invisible force field; do not break.
6. Coffee is currency
7. Find your go-to frat
8. Never ACTUALLY ask “what are we” (accept that you will literally never know)
9. The bathroom is a group activity
10. Do it for the f*cking plot. 

Just like these laws, the entire college experience is engineered. Dorm life. Greek life. Major pathways. Which bars you go to. Which pizza spot is the best. It’s all curated over the years of students before you to shape not only you but your community as a whole. 

The cherry on top? You’re being observed, constantly. I mean think about it, aren’t you also observing others? Making opinions without even necessarily judging? From professors being legitimately concerned with your attendance, to Greek life toxic telephone where everyone knows what happened last night, it’s like living in a constant state of peer review. A turning point in the experiment comes when you inevitably have to make the choice to transcend hangxiety and the paralyzing fear of being perceived and realize – none of it really matters.

the results are in

So yes, college is absurd, exhausting, and absolutely a social experiment – but because of that, it leaves you better than when you found it. You come out wiser, more mature, fully educated on things that have nothing to do with your major, and way better at adulting. Everyone’s confused, everyone’s breaking the unwritten laws, and that’s kinda the entire point. Life is one big lesson – and college is the perfect example. 

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• college