Overrated/Underrated things about college

jeandevaches
Sat, 15 Jan 2011 17:56:34 +0000

I empathize a lot with your situation, namely with the loneliness. I think at home I took my “support network” for granted a lot (my family, my childhood friends, etc.) and only really thought about the new friends I had made in high school. So I thought creating a whole new social network wouldn’t be a big deal.

My freshman year was the best. I grew so much that year, both in positive ways and in response to negative things in my life at the time. I was really close with my entryway (25-ish people; Princeton version of a hallway in outdated dorms that don’t really have them), my 3 roommates, and my athletic team (as well as friends I made through one of these 3 sources). I made the big mistake of getting a single for my sophomore year, and I learned that I’m the type of person who easily slips into just hanging out in his room watching tv and getting on the internet by himself rather than going out and socializing out of sheer laziness. Living with other people, whether that’s my family or roommates, and being forced to hang out with people through clubs, teams, entryways, etc. is very good for me. In the absence of that duress, I get lonely.

I would have similar advice for any high school seniors. Don’t get an apartment or a single your freshman year unless you absolutely can’t stand living with someone else, and seriously consider having a roommate(s) most of your time in college. If nothing else, having a roommate (that you like) always provides someone to eat with, go do stuff with, get introduced to new people by, etc. I also strongly recommend joining too many organizations and paring it down to several that you really like the people in. That’s more important than what the club’s name is.

As someone else said in a more obnoxious/networking/who-you-know way, college is more about the people you meet and get to know than it is the classes you take. I think a lot of people, especially people on this site and myself included, think of themselves as the sum of what they’ve done rather than the number/quality of relationships they have that matter to them. You aren’t who you know, but you are who you care about and who cares about you.