Put away the frat-lap shoes and start entertaining at home. Transition to a more mature life style, as an upperclassman.
Our college experience is compromised of some of the most dynamic and fast-paced years of our lives. Two years ago, I was still busy furnishing my dorm room and now I’m furnishing an entire house. Weekends spent at the fraternities have evolved to house parties and roaming Campus Corner. People who started as friends, freshman year, have become family.
Despite all of the changes and developments upperclassmen
have gone through since freshman year, it is still extremely easy for us to
fall into a routine of school, work, and trying to have a social life somewhere
in the mix. As the schedules become more hectic and the weekends off dwindle,
it’s important to start planning your social life as much as your professional
one.
My friends and I all run on extremely busy schedules, now
that we’ve hit junior year. When we do get a chance to
hang out, it’s usually with our computers out and books open. While our time together
used to be spent in a frat house or on campus, the constant workload of an
upperclassman has lead to spending a lot of time holed up in our individual
homes in front of a laptop screen. Because of this, we’ve started having family
dinner on a regular basis so we can take a break and hang out, screen-free.
With our family dinners, we are training ourselves for social gatherings and
dinner parties once we make it out into the professional world. Gone are the days of frat-lapping and
dorm-storming; they've been replaced with homemade food and company you know you like.
By junior year, most people have a group of consistent
friends they enjoy spending time with. Because of this, keeping it classy
with a relaxed small gathering of close friends is a lot more fun than the frenzied laps around Greek row trying to meet new people.
What’s the point of making a gourmet meal and going to all the
trouble of setting up for a nice dinner? Why dress up on one of the
precious days that could be spent wearing no pants, watching TV? Well, because
despite all the trouble, the effort of putting together a nice evening for
friends is worth it.
The ever-encroaching real world awaits, a
world full of social practices and etiquette that we were taught in middle
school cotillion, but haven’t put to practice in years. Take advantage of
entering the older college years to put these long forgotten traditions to use. Trade in that weekend flask for a bottle of wine for the hostess.
Refresh your memory on salad fork verses dessert fork and start learning to enjoy
a cocktail, sip by sip, instead of slamming down Burnett’s at a pregame.
Mastering the art of the dinner party is like creating a private date
party with a guest list all your own. Maybe it’s the people you live with or
the friends you see every day; maybe it’s an opportunity to catch up with old
friends from the dorms, or to invite some sisters over whom you haven’t hung out with
in a while. No matter the occasion, turning it into an event is good
practice for the future and a great way to hang out with friends in a new
setting.
Executing this may seem daunting, but with enough people
it’s a piece of cake. If every person is in charge of bringing one thing or
making a different aspect of the meal, preparation is a breeze. Becoming an
upperclassman in college means maturing, and going from the loud music and
drunken stampedes of large parties to the comfort and classiness of a set table
in your own home.
Although our family dinners started with paper plates and
enchiladas, we have come to enjoy them so much that friends sitting around a couch enjoying a home
cooked meal turned into full-fledged planned events, with every detail
accounted for. Our most recent dinner was, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” themed, with
everything from an extravagant outdoor table setting down to small
details, like flower crowns.
As the college years continue to push forward at an
ever-increasing pace, it is important to age with the changes. At the end of our college years, all we have is what we’ve
chosen to make with them. So make memories, take the time to appreciate friends
and food and, before you graduate, learn how to cook more than ramen noodles.