<p>I’ve thought about this problem quite a bit. There’s definitely a lot to do here, it’s just a matter of me finding people to do it with. My roommate is great. If he weren’t my roommate, then I don’t have any idea who could replace him! I just can’t seem to find a group of people that I fit in with at all. There are so many different groups, and I’ve tried socializing with several of them at lunch and dinner but I’ve never left feeling like “wow, I should talk to these people more often.” Usually I count the seconds until it’s socially acceptable to leave.</p>
<p>The age distribution could have something to do with it, because the only people in my suite that I talked to were my roommates and the seniors. I lived in Atwood, which has a reputation for being pretty quiet and isolated since the outer dorms don’t have reputations as specific as the inner dorms. I also don’t feel like my personality meshes well with most Mudders, and the people that I do mesh with have sufficiently different interests that it’s difficult for me to relate. All things considered, I have the best roommate possible. Even we don’t mesh well on activities and interests, but being roommates kept us in contact long enough for us to become friends.</p>
<p>There is one thing that tipped me off. I was sitting in class (still during high school) wondering what kind of people might be at Mudd. I sat there and thought “Well, everyone will be like the handful of other people here sitting in calc III with me.” Then I realized that I didn’t really care for all but one or two of the 10 people, and that all of my friends were majoring in art, English, Japanese, etc. But I convinced myself that there would be a lot of people at Mudd (relative to 10 at least) so I would inevitably find at least a small group of people. Oops! My parents half-joke that this sort of situation runs in my family. My mom and dad talk about how they really didn’t have that many friends in college, and my little brother has similar problems in middle school. Maybe I can blame all of this on poor genetics!</p>
<p>So I’ve all but completely made up my mind to stay, so I really, really hope this is all worth it, but there’s no way to know until after I’ve graduated. Even then, it’ll be hard to distinguish whether I could have done any better or worse given a different college education. </p>
<p>What I do know is that after all of this, a 40 hour/week job will be a joke :D</p>