Our whole lives as students have been structured relatively the same way from preschool to high school. You go to classes in a localized building with people you know and at the end of the day you go back to your house. But then, we hit a point in our life where our education changes completely and our previous social norms are thrown out the window. Looking back on my freshman year made me realize how weird college is. It's so strange yet at this point feels for normal.
1. You're only surrounded by people your own age.
You are literally around your peers 24/7. You go to breakfast and someone your age is working at the dining hall. You go to a class discussion and your TA is only about five years older than you. You go back to your dorm and there are 300 people your age living in one building. You walk on the street or go to restaurants, it's only people your age. As college students, we get excited when we see a small child or an old couple walking down the street. It's just weird.
2. Campus is like a large outdoor high school.
In high school, your classrooms were at farthest up a flight of stairs. In college, your next class could be two miles away and you only have 15 minutes to get there.
3. People go out every night of the week and it's not that weird.
Regular social norms are just completely forgotten when you go to college. People go out every night of the week and no one thinks anything of it. If you did that in adulthood, you’d definitely be labeled an alcoholic.
4. Classes with curves basically pin students against each other.
In high school, you got a grade based on how you did. In college, you waiver on whether you wholeheartedly help out a classmate because you don’t want them to change the curve too much. When grades mean the most why are we depending on other’s grades as well as ours?
5. You don’t drive, you just walk.
Most everyone on campus has a driver’s license and probably drove to school. Now, we walk everywhere and often it doesn’t really matter how far or what the weather is like.
6. And walking five miles in a day is normal.
7. People wait in line for the library to open.
Being smart in college is a good thing, people don’t get mocked for being a nerd. Everyone is here for the same reason; to get a college education. So, when the library doesn’t open till 11 on a Sunday you see a line of people waiting to go into the library.
8. You live with people you don’t know at first whom you will later become great friends with.
Your parents literally drop you off in a city you’ve probably barely lived in, to a building you’ve never been to, to live with a person you barely know. Totally not weird right?
However, weird college is, it's also some of the best years of your life. A city that was a completely foreign place becomes home and people that were once strangers become your best friends for life.
