As an active user of social networking sites such as Instagram and Facebook, I am often subject to various memes and messages sent out by the general public for the general public. One of them that caught my attention though is a meme that contrasts how a person dresses for morning classes vs. how they dress for afternoon/evening classes because I can relate quite heavily to it.

I completely understand the reasoning behind this meme because often times we value our sleep more than we do getting up, and getting dressed in a more formal manner –I know I certainly do– and afternoon classes are after you wake up and get situated in your surroundings thus making it easier to put in more effort. This morning, however, I woke up an hour earlier than my alarm, and so I took more time than usual to get dressed which included clogging my pores with some high-quality foundation-thank you Becca-and actually wearing a shirt that I did not receive at a camp or picnic. It felt fantastic to walk into class looking the way I did, but most mornings my go to outfit includes one of my favorite ratty T-shirts and a pair of athletic shorts or leggings, and on those mornings I feel just as fantastic.

The reason I bring up the meme and my dressing is that recently, I have noticed some articles that give instructions on how people should dress for college, and like the many people who have responded already, I was furious at first. Then I thought about the topic for a while, and I dwelled on it for a couple of days and at this point, I think I have come to an answer I am content with.

From the day college started, unless I had an event where the dress code was specified as formal I have never given a thought about dressing up “nicely” to sit in a classroom. Part of the reason is laziness, and part of it is because in a class of some 200 odd students I figured no one was going to notice if I wore the same shirt three times a week-yes, I did make use of my washing machine. However, class this morning was different because there are only about 10 people in my class, and for a millisecond I considered that perhaps I should put more effort into the way I dress. It was a passing thought that just did not make sense to me because 10 people or 200 people I highly doubt my worth is defined simply by what I wear. Then comes in the argument of first impressions, and I completely agree. First impressions are important, impressions, in general, are important, but an impression is often times formed without an extensive amount of thought, and so how could the clothes I wear to class possibly define my entire being? One article specified that in order for a person to be taken seriously as an adult they must dress like one. Great point except for that I am not aware of a set "adult" outfit. Plus, how could I possibly be taken seriously as an adult when half of my interests are shared with an age range of 5-12. Ultimately for a person like me, dressing for things like class is a subliminal process, and I was struck by the fact that there are people out there offended by people who dress like I do.

I am not going to get into great detail about why I found these other articles to be galling because I certainly think reading them also gave me an insight into a completely different perspective. There were some excellent points made such as how sometimes dressing well can make a person feel better intrinsically, but again that cannot be laid out as a blanket statement. Sure, it is important to dress nicely when it is specified, or when you absolutely feel like dressing one step forward from my go-to outfit, but ultimately the decision is yours to make. Regardless of how you dress or whether it be a morning or afternoon class I think the moral we can all learn from is to do what makes you feel good. If that means dressing up for a morning class, or not dressing up for an afternoon class, or if it means wearing the same blue giveaway t-shirt-go for it! Feeling good about yourself intrinsically makes a pretty big difference in a variety of factors in your life, and while I did not think about dressing as a debate worthy topic at first it certainly did open my eyes up.