Hi All. I am a freshman at Tulane and moved in on August 13th. I am a female from the Boston area. Even though I am only shy of being here for four weeks, I am already miserable at what is supposed to be one of the happiest universities for students.
BACKGROUND!! In high school my goal was to play collegiate lacrosse. But I struggled with injuries throughout high school, was injured almost every season from bad luck so I pursued a PG Year at Phillips Exeter. Then the spring of my senior year my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and I had to become her primary care taker. As a result of this, I missed a majority of my senior lacrosse season and was not able to play over the summer going into my PG year (my mom had multiple surgeries and I was her main care taker). The result of this was that I did not get recruited to a school for lacrosse. So the fall of my PG year I had to apply to colleges without being a lacrosse recruit, devastated. I scrambled in this process because I had never considered college without lacrosse and was unsure of what I wanted. I did my research on what I wanted and applied ED2 to Tulane and really did not consider many other schools. I applied to about five other schools than Tulane but was really all in on Tulane, I was successful in a majority of the other admissions though. At the time, it had everything I wanted in a school seemingly and I was also really drawn to the social aspects and the amount of partying because my biggest coping method within the last year or two had been drugs and alcohol, unfortunately. I thought that because I couldn’t play lacrosse, what else was I going to do as an outlet then to get wasted as much as possible. Unfortunately, this was my thinking. At the time I was not a whole person, emotionally and within my identity.
I ended up LOVING Exeter as I settled in. And falling in love with everything, I was extremely happy there and the happiest I had been in years. But since my arrival at Tulane, I have been full of doubts. Every single day I miss Exeter. I realize now that the person I was when I applied to Tulane is extremely different than the person I am now. Before you say that is rash, I seriously mean that I have changed more in the past year than I have in my entire life. I have undergone some pretty signifiant traumas and circumstances within the past four years. But in the past year I have really done the work to navigate my feelings and outlook on life. I think much of this is maturity and developing values/needs.
A big factor is making friends here that I feel are “my people.” I have made the effort to meet so so many people, and I am naturally extroverted. I have never struggled making friends. And I understand that it takes a while to find your people, I know that. However, because I have been so miserable here, while everyone else is extremely happy, it is hard to connect with others. Everyone seems far more excited to be here than I am. And that is really hard because I was very excited to be here, but as you can see I am setting in to a lot of doubts, which has instilled some very overwhelming feelings of sadness. Another BIG part of the social aspect is that I am not jewish, while 50% of the student body here is. I will not go into detail because I want to avoid anything offensive (I do not have any offensive thoughts- my point is that as the jewish community is very small, a lot of them knew each other going in to Tulane or had several mutual friends, and overall I do not have a lot in common with them as they do to other jewish students). I knew that there would be a large jewish population here but I did not expect that it would be such a large part of the school’s culture/social stuff.
Everyone is very excited about going out and partying, and I do not share the same excitement at all. I thought that I would/did but now that I am here and in the environment of it, I hate it. Yes I enjoy it on some level but not the degree of it that exists here.
Another big reason why I chose Tulane is because of their Legal Studies in Business major. Not a lot of other schools offer this major. I chose this major mainly based on the fact that I couldn’t decide if I wanted to do business or law, so why not do both (I have other reasons obviously but to sum it up). However, I am realizing many of the classes that I will be required to take to fulfill this major are not ones that I find myself enjoying at all. Yes, I understand that I will have to take classes throughout my college life that I will not like. But I am already not enjoying the Business classes that I am in. This is upsetting because it was a BIG factor of my decision and having these realizations is hard because now I am looking in to just become a History or some type of social studies major.
I have made the effort to go to all of the events, and join clubs as well. I have been trying very hard to immerse myself.
I feel out of place, I feel totally lost. I have cried everyday, and I am not someone who cries often. I think that I made an impulsive decision on being all in Tulane last fall. I do not think I am thinking rash now.
My thoughts are leading to transferring but I know that will be a hard and stressful process. I am interested in looking at NESCAC schools that will be similar to the experience of Exeter. When I was initially looking at colleges, I completely disregarded these schools because I wanted a big party school in the south, but obviously that has changed. Also, I wanted to be a business major, which those schools dont offer, but that has also changed. I am thinking that maybe if I were to transfer to a NESCAC school that I would be able to play on the lacrosse team there as well. (that would take some more configuring but I am playing on the club team here at Tulane so its not like I am going from not playing at all and those schools are D3 so its not a very high level). Being on a team is something that I dearly miss as it was my entire social life in high school. Not having that here at Tulane is very upsetting and I miss it dearly, along with playing lacrosse. Bowdoin is definitely my favorite school out of the small new England liberal arts colleges. BUT I know that it is EXTREMELY hard to get in there in general but ESPECIALLY as a transfer student. I am a great student with good Extracurriculars though and I feel as if I could create a great application. I know that the odds are extremely low though. My ideal situation would be to be on the lacrosse team at Bowdoin, I know that I would be really happy doing that. Again, I know the odds of that happening are low, but I do have some great connections that could help me.
Let me know your advice. Especially on the possibility of transferring to Bowdoin.