Today I moved out of my freshman dorm. A weird sense of nostalgia washed over me as I walked through my room and hallway for the last time: the open study lounge I went to once at the beginning of the school year when I was under the impression that it was necessary to read for my political science class, the 75 steps it took me to get to my best friend’s door, the vague smell of pizza from the restaurant downstairs.
As I look back on my freshman year, the whole thing is a blur. Not because I spent the year in a drunken stupor and a haze of drugs (don’t worry mum, I’m still your perfect angel, obviously), but because everything just went by so quickly. You always imagine that when it comes to the big moments in life, when monumental changes occur, time will slow down accordingly. Time will allow you to soak in what’s happening to you; it will creep, allowing you to etch every detail and story into your brain. But time doesn’t work like that. If anything, time is a bit of a jerk, because time speeds up.
When I do attempt to collect my memories from this past year, a few things stand out to me. The first one is the notion that you are a collection of who you surround yourself with. More specifically, you are a product of the five individuals you hang out with the most. If you surround yourself with toxic people, their behavior will rub off on you. It may not completely change who you are as a person, but constant interaction with negativity and bad behavior will ultimately affect you in the end. It’s inescapable; negativity catches you like the undertow of a huge wave, encapsulating you and dragging you down. You may not notice it immediately, but over time, you’ll catch yourself saying a side comment you may have never dreamed would slip out of your mouth before, or you will discover a change of pattern in your thought process. Even if these are just little things, these little things can amount to something larger over time if you’re not careful. Every negative thought you entertain sends you tumbling even further into the abyss, until the darkness proceeds to swallow you, isolate you. Additionally, strangers perceive you how they perceive those you surround yourself with. So in the end, you are found guilty, even if just by association.
This works for the inverse as well. If you surround yourself with open-minded individuals who choose optimism, you’ll find yourself following suit. So I encourage you to find a tribe of people who embrace culture, who prefer to discuss ideas rather than people, who flood light into the world, and who know how to turn any situation into something fun, into an adventure. Also, find friends who aren’t afraid to roast you; we all need to be called out every once in a while.
A second thing that stands out to me is that if you’re in a situation where you’re forced to choose between studying and embarking upon an adventure, choose adventure. I know, I know, we grew up being lectured by our parents to study hard and to study often, and to make mature decisions. While I agree that you need to stay on top of your work and not let anything slide, you also aren't doing yourself any favors by wasting your youth huddled up in the library (or wherever your preferred study spot is). So yes, strive to pass your classes and build a good GPA, but don’t let your studies be the only thing that defines your college career. At the end of the day, while my freshman year may have been a blur, the things I do remember aren’t the times I killed myself trying to understand the difference between a thrust fault and a strike-slip fault in geology or the nights my eyes glazed over my supplemental reading for Texas government. I remember dancing with a drunk panda. I remember stealing parking pylons. I remember night hikes looking for haunted bridges. I remember stumbling upon gay dance clubs and going in to explore. I remember running away from home to go to my first rave. I remember falling in love with it and every subsequent rave I went to after. I remember setting off fire alarms at 3 in the morning. I remember the people I did these things with, how we felt in that moment, so pure and infinite. It was at some of these moments I felt so blissfully in the present; there was no thought of GPA’s or careers or reminders of the past, the moment was just that: the moment. And those are the moments I live for, and those are the moments I encourage people to seek.
The third thing freshman year implemented in my mind was the idea that you will end up wherever you need to be. I arrived at the University of Texas at Arlington a CAP kid, with full intent of transferring to UT Austin by this time now. However, I crossed under the bridge to UTA with an open mind and an open heart (unlike a majority of CAP kids), because the circumstances that led me to UTA were so bizarre that I felt like UTA was where I was supposed to be for my first year of university. Plus, your experience can only be as good as your attitude, right? After a couple of months, I had completely fallen in love with UTA. Sure, it had its flaws, but what university didn’t? I felt convinced that I was brought to UTA , and needed to stay at UTA, because of the close group of friends that I had made. However, that all ended up falling apart. It got to a point where my closest friends were either transferring or no longer my closest friends. While the obvious answer was for me to choose to transfer to UT Austin again, I got roped into staying due to two job offers I received in Arlington that I could not refuse. So again, I sit here, in Arlington, convinced that this is where I am supposed to be, for whatever reason. It’s reassuring to feel like I ended up where I belong, at least for the time being, even if I’m unclear on why.
It’s strange to allow the word “sophomore” to cross my lips when someone asks me what year I am in school. It’s surreal; I’ll probably spend the first semester still thinking of myself as a freshman. But with age comes wisdom, and I am grateful for whatever lessons I’ll find myself taking to heart next year as I work more jobs, meet more people, take harder classes, and live in more places, all while implementing the ones freshman year taught me.
