Starting college can be exciting or it can be terrifying. However, in a much more real sense, it truly is a weird mixture of both emotions. The idea of being away from your parents for the first time can be just as liberating as it is petrifying. You take a step away from your relatively comfortable and definitely familiar life of high school and step out into an unknown world of sheer "differentness." No matter what kind of education you received, what your parents are like, or what kind of clubs and sports you were involved in during high school, college is going to be different than what you're used to. It might be the harsh reality of having to now drop a fortune on textbooks every single semester, or it could be the endless possibilities involved in the scheduling of your own classes. It could be the freedom to blow your last three dollars on a midnight run to Taco Bell, or it could be having to do your own laundry and/or finding creative ways to get around having to do your laundry. Either way, college has a brand new experience in store for every single person who goes. This is especially true for the adventurous souls that choose a college experience away in a different region of the country then they're familiar with.
I was born and raised in Maryland, right outside the nation's capital. Spending money to go to museums, especially museums of a lesser quality than the Smithsonian's, was blasphemy in my home. A trip to the grocery store meant crossing paths with people of at least four different religions, ten different ethnicities, and two different sexual orientations than myself. My high school had police officers on the grounds at all times and we were taught at a young age to take two forms of ID with you if you leave the house. At the ripe age of seventeen, I traded in access to Starbucks at every corner for pepperoni rolls and corn hole (two completely foreign things to me previously) in good old West Virginia.
I was mentally prepared for writing papers until 1 a.m. and exerting energy into classes such as Greek and statistics. I was emotionally prepared to walk away from friends and family and live with one hundred strangers in the same dorm building. I was physically prepared for the semester with a stockpile of coffee, a shower caddy, and textbooks. However, nothing, absolutely nothing, could have prepared me for the culture shock I experienced.
West Virginia was like nothing I had ever experienced before. To give you a frame of reference, the summer after my freshman year, I traveled to Bucharest, Romania for a month and experienced less of a culture shock than I did in West Virginia. I don't want to be misunderstood and have anyone think I don't love West Virginia. I absolutely do and it has transformed into what I now consider home. In all honesty, I even experience a tiny bit of culture shock every time I'm back in the city now. The point is, this feeling of home was the furthest thing to what I was initially feeling when I got to school. There were all of a sudden very few ways to get around town, approximately 600 fewer places to go and do anything, anyway, and a couple million people less than I was used to. Speaking of transportation, there always seemed to be just as many deer on the road as there were cars. One time a deer hit me while I was driving. In case you didn't catch that, I didn't hit a deer; the deer hit me. Food, public interactions with people, ways of speaking, and even the wildlife was completely different than I was used to. I was so not prepared for West Virginia culture, producing culture shock in its purest form and for longer than I would like to admit. Once I had moved into the dorms and the culture shock started to set in, it was too late to change my mind. Once my new comforter was on that stained, yet surprisingly comfortable, mattress, there was no going back.
After a while, I found that the best way to handle culture shock was conveniently the exact same way I found it best to handle college as a whole: jump in with both feet and no hesitation. Honestly, I would also be lying my butt off if I were to say this was an easy thing to do. However, to be fair, there is very little about being a young adult that is easy. Being young is hard, being an adult is harder, but being somewhere in the middle is somehow even harder than both. Being in a position to have to pick a path for your life is also a lot to handle, and being in a foreign atmosphere really only adds a lot of stress to your life. So when I found myself in this position I had to ask myself, why resist change? Even worse, why resent change? Jump in with both feet. I had to learn not to resist the fact that I would need to change some to adapt to the new culture I was now surrounded by. For example, if I drove in West Virginia the way I learned to drive in the city, I would no doubt rack up tickets on the daily. I also found myself needing to stop using certain phrases because no one around me understood them! I had to adapt the way I spoke to the culture around me just to be clearly understood. I couldn't resist these changes because if I did I would only be hurting my own chances at success. Even worse than resisting change though is resenting it.
The number one sure-fire way to never get over your culture shock is to resent the new culture you are in. You may be a long way from your home, but you are in someone else's home. Be respectful of that fact and try to see that there is something good about everywhere that can and should be celebrated! Each culture is the way that it is because of generations and generations of people to shape it that way. Take a step away from the gut reaction of condemnation and superiority most people have and try to appreciate what is different. Who knows? You might even find more similarities to what you're used to than you expect. Either way, embrace the good things you see around you. Embrace the feelings of being in a foreign place. Embrace the idea that you might actually like a different lifestyle than you thought you would. Embrace the fact that you are going to learn just as much about yourself as you will the new culture you are in. Five years ago I never would have imagined myself in a small town, and I definitely never imagined myself liking it. While I do wish the whole town didn't shut down at 9:00 p.m., I do appreciate the slower pace of life and the lack of a crowd full of busy people everywhere I go.
If you find yourself in a similar position to my freshman year, you will most likely be feeling like your world was turned upside down. I recommend showing love to the new people around you. I recommend trying as many local diners as you can. I recommend going to every festival or parade possible. I recommend trying the local fruits and vegetables that you never heard of before. I recommend spending time outside in the mountains, on the beach, or in whatever terrain you find yourself in. I recommend talking to people from other places and cultures, as well, and encouraging them to be optimistic about the new atmosphere you are all in together. I recommend joining a social club, local church, or volunteer program that forces you out of your dorm room more than once a week. I recommend grabbing coffee before class with people you just meet in your 8 a.m. class you mistakenly thought would be a good idea. Most of all, I recommend journaling your experiences and feelings so that you can look back in your next year and read how silly you sound forever worrying in the first place that you couldn't survive in that new town!
Looking back, I'm not sure that there was anything that I could have even done to prepare, so there's nothing I'm going to tell you to do to prepare. There's no magical pill or online course training to help you with a new town. All you can do is enter college and the new culture with an open mind. Remember to be patient with yourself because change can be hard. Please don't ever think you're too cool to call home and update your family about your life. They will be some of your loudest cheerleaders during your hardest days (which sometimes last a full semester...) and the first ones to hug you till you feel like your eyes bulging out each and every time you visit home. Your parents are often incredibly important to helping you deal with culture shock.
If you find beginning college and entering a new culture to be way more overwhelming than you anticipated, remember the power and importance of sitting and breathing. Never underestimate the power of a good nap or warm shower. Start where you are and make small, attainable steps to reaching your goals. Remember that it is also ok for your goals to change! As you go through college, especially your first year, you will learn how to make a proper resumé and the magical qualities that can only be found in a good cup of coffee, but you also learn what your passions, your interests, and your dislikes are. Take care of yourself the same way you would your own child and make sure you're eating regularly, drinking more water than you think necessary, taking showers on a regular basis, going outside at least once a day, and getting enough sleep. Not every day will be your best, but not every day will be your worst. No matter how hard you try, you can't just wish the culture you are now in were something more like what you're familiar with and it suddenly be that way. You can't even make others see the beauty of the culture you're from, but you can try to open your eyes to the beauty of theirs and jump in with both feet.
