I’m sprawled on the grass, the music in my earbuds turned up. I’m watching the freshmen walk into Dunham, fidgeting with their lanyards, the upperclassmen walking with friends or biking by themselves, the occasional dog-walkers passing by. My laptop is open to the twenty pages of Deacon reading I need to get done by tomorrow.
My first few weeks of college have been a bit of a whirlwind. I couldn’t hear myself think for most of orientation week with the amount of activities Hamilton kept us busy with (which I’m actually grateful for, because otherwise I’d probably have been stuck in my dorm room FaceTiming friends).
Let’s be honest: making new friends is hard. For the first few weeks, we cling onto the first people we meet – because god forbid we walk into Commons or cross to Dark Side alone. I met most of my close high school friends in seventh grade, so after being around one another for six years, we’d gotten to know each other pretty well. We’d gone to Bar Mitzvahs together, started high school together, applied to colleges together… So to fly across the country and say goodbye to those friends I’d grown up with, to start fresh, is difficult. But it’s also exciting. I have no idea who the 1,849 other students here are, and I love that. It’s terrifying, but I love it.
I met dozens of new people at the Dunham mixer and I think we all forgot most of each other’s names immediately following the event, but it was still a necessary welcome-to-college awkward ice-breaker. I still run into people now and exchange the “Hey, we met while doing that speed-dating game… what’s your name again?”
Coming from a high school with a class of 124 kids, our class size is a bit overwhelming for me, but I’ve met so many interesting, funny, intelligent people already and I feel so lucky to be able to learn and grow with them for the next few years. I’ve had conversations outside of the classroom ranging from the use of the n-word to how hookup culture affects all genders to why Hamilton values flavored water so much – and I just met these people two weeks ago.
My orientation trip group, for example, was such an eclectic group of people and we bonded so much throughout the six days of camping and eating gorp (an iconic trail mix that consists of granola, dried fruit, Swedish Fish, Chex Mix, and, of course, M&Ms).
It’s been a significant adjustment to begin college; I’ve been assigned loads of reading in my classes and I’m nervous as I’m preparing for my first exams, but I’m excited to get in the heads of my professors and to think like I haven’t thought before.
It’s all happening so fast, but I’m beginning to feel more at home here. I’m ready to learn more about myself, about the society we live in, to explore my passions, to break my plans, to create lasting relationships, and to keep sampling McEwen’s phenomenal desserts.
Despite all of this change and excitement, it still hasn’t exactly hit me that I’m in college. College. I’m not sure when it will.
Maybe when I download Venmo.