<p>Sure, I’ll chime in a bit here.</p>
<p>First point: I have found a series of very close, satisfying relationships here. The relationships I’ve found here exceed my high school relationships in both quality and quantity.</p>
<p>Second point: None of them have been with people I knew first quarter first year. I will say hello to my house cohort if I see them on campus, but nothing more.</p>
<p>Third point: First-years stink, as a general rule. The people I know who are fourth-years now (very cool people who are dorks but wouldn’t let you know it unless you steered conversation in that general direction) who are awesome, confident, socially active all-stars were nervous as first-years. Will I party??!!! Will I get laid!!!??? Etc. So all first-years, in some way, are overcoming whatever happened to them in high school. I believe this is true for almost every student at every college, to some degree.</p>
<p>Fourth point: Yes, Chicago is pretty nerdy, but not, in my mind, the way your friend tells it. I don’t want to give myself away, but I think it’s fair to say that one of my favorite Maroons is a very preppy, pretty, homecoming queen type who has many pictures on her facebook profile of her doing silly things while holding a red cup in her hand. But she’s also REALLY, REALLY excited about school. And she’s one of my friends! (Note: “Homecoming queen” is among the last phrases I’d use to describe myself)</p>
<p>If you’ve read some of my previous posts, you may have gathered that I’m a nerd in the way that I get very excited by ideas and I like school a lot, but I’m definitely not somebody who puts a lot of emphasis on grades (as my high school and college transcript show.) If I go to somebody’s apartment, I am very likely to squee at their collection of books or board games, and I have been known to play some heavy-duty strategy games under the influence. But I’ve also been to a very healthy share of frat parties in my time and have been to some parties where I’ve seen things happen that are best not shared on the internet. So yes. I’m a nerd, but I don’t hold myself to that label 24/7 by any means.</p>
<p>So, what helped me?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I fell into a hybridized social network through my extracurriculars. I would say of the 20-30 people I see and hang out with most often all know each other, even if I know person X from Y activity and person A from B activity, it is highly likely that person X and A know each other from C. So at parties and such, I find myself introducing people who already know of each other. I like that I can go to somebody’s apartment and see some familiar faces, even if they are not my best friends ever.</p></li>
<li><p>I actually went to some of the things I got invited to on facebook.</p></li>
<li><p>I was patient. One forgets how much freshman year of college is very much like moving to a new town and starting a new school… because it is! Soon enough the categories of “nerd,” “hipster,” “prom queen,” etc. will break down. If I categorized the world by sorting out people whom I felt didn’t share anything in common with me based on the way they appeared, I’d have no friends.</p></li>
</ol>