You’re excited to move from home as for almost all incoming freshman alike, it is your first time being away aside from the annual week spent at “summer camp,” aka what you told your friends when you were actually at Grandma’s house. This not only means no Mom bickering about the scatter of unfolded laundry in your room or having to abide by Dad’s 11 o’clock curfew; this opens up a whole new set of doors for you that only your subconscious may pick up on. Sooner or later the clothes you wear, the of style your hair, your participation in substance use, and even your sexual preference are no longer bound to the stereotypes in your bubble of a town or the pressures of naive parents desperately clinging onto their “babies’” innocence.
For many, college isn’t just a place you go to learn the mechanisms of the autonomic nervous system or the theory behind Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand, but a playground for fun, often pushing the boundaries of experimentation. Not only this, but a classroom where many of life’s most difficult lessons are learned.
A huge challenge that many first year students struggle to face is reconnecting with old friends after a semester of college has wedged its way between them. Aside from learning new nicknames that your buds prefer now, you’re adjusting to new habits and perhaps hearing things that you never would have pictured coming out of your best friend’s mouth.
“I got pretty cross-faded one night after taking a few hits off the bong…ended up hooking up with my floor mate again…and his two friends…LOL.”
You might be quick to snap back with, “Wow, college really changed you.” But remember, maybe your high water wearing, tube-sock rocking, best friend may have had a wild side all along. It’s possible that we are afraid of not living up to the expectations of our friends and families who have built these preconceived notions of us because they have grown up with us.
If you didn’t drink or smoke in high school, (aside from legality issues) maybe you were just afraid of people labeling you as a “pothead” or a druggie.
If you kept your hook-ups to a minimum in high school, if not avoided them all, maybe you were just afraid that people would “slut shame” you.
Essentially, we are afraid that people will look at us differently. We care too much of others’ opinions and judgments rather than realizing that maybe different is what we are meant to be all along.
This day and age, we are conditioned to believe that our moral values change when college knocks on our door. Perhaps it is the idea that we have a fresh start and no one is holding us to the vows we made to our 3rd grade teachers to stay away from substance abuse. Maybe it is no longer having parents hovering over shoulders with expectations of the perfect white picket fence family that allow us to spread our wings and fall in love with someone atypical to our taste, whether it be in style, personality, or gender.
I am in no means encouraging this behavior, but I would say, allow college to be a home where you can shed layers of your skin and try, test, and experiment without fear of social rejection or disappointing anyone else. Ultimately, the most important person to avoid disappointing is you.
