Schools Out for the Summer

MUSICAL LINK
This guy is creepy. The chorus is what I was going for.

How's everyone doing? Its been a long while since I really put up a blog post, but I was thinking about getting back into it this summer. That's right. This SUMMER! It is a crazy feeling being done with school. I think I speak for all of us who moved on and took the step into the college lifestyle in saying that we can still remember those first days when we were moving all of our junk into a then barren room. For some, you didn't know your roommate very well and you were thinking about how that was going to affect your freshman year. Others like myself knew our roommates from high school, and so the transition wasn't really that difficult. Most of us probably arrived at college and quickly realized that we were no longer the smartest person, the most athletic, or the best at whatever random skill we claimed during high school. Now as we sit back, relaxing on our couches in our parents houses, we have our freshman year under our belts. I want to go through in this blog and just mention some of the things I learned from this freshman year. To kind of go along with that, I am going to ask some questions along the way so maybe you can think about your past school year also. And as a disclaimer, although I am referring to the first year in college, these things that I have learned and the questions i'll ask can really apply to anybodies past year of school. So I guess the first question I want to ask is: did anyone's first (previous) year go exactly as they thought it would?

I know for me the answer to this is a definite no. I came into college knowing that there were going to be a lot more people, a lot more parties, and a lot harder classes. It turns out all three of these things were true, just not in the context that I first thought. Going from a school of 500 kids to 40,000 kids is quite a jump. I know that not all of you are cut out for the big college lifestyle and so some may have ended up going to a school that has fewer kids than your high school. However, at a school like Purdue with so many students, I thought I was just going to get lost in this sea of strangers. Looking back on my freshman year, there were times where I felt a bit overwhelmed by the insane amount of people; yet, I was completely surprised at how easy it was to run into people that you knew. Before I went off to college, my dad tried to really impart on me the importance of being a "connector." Well, on a campus of 40,000 other people, sometimes that seemed like a daunting task. But as the school year went on, I quickly began to realize that if you put in the effort to meet people and are willing to sometimes step out of your comfort zone, campus becomes a whole lot smaller. You may be walking to class and run into five different people that you've met previously. SO because of this, I think that lesson number one that I took away from freshman year is to always be willing and open to meet someone new. People have awesome stories, and you'd be surprised by how many people just want somebody to talk to. Two quick things before we move on to the next point that I think are important are to always make the effort to remember someone's name. People like it when they are called by their name. It shows that you care and are making the effort to create a friendship. Secondly, don't be afraid to make friends with older students. People generally have this mindset that older students mentor younger students, and this is often true; however, people learn from each other, no matter the age difference.

Another preconceived notion that I had coming into college was that it was going to be this insane party life, and not to make any one out there too excited, but at times it is. I had this mindset that even though I have never been a partier before, when I got to college, the social life would tell me that partying = fun. And that is exactly what happened. However, what I was not expecting and something that I really grew from during my freshman year was the simple fact that even though partying is equal to fun for most people, it is not the grandmaster equation for a college experience. The amount of fun that you have is what you make of it. I was fortunate enough to be able to be surrounded by a great group of people who had similar definitions of what fun was. So on a friday night, instead of going to some frat party or going to someones apartment, we were able to all get together and play card games and watch movies. These experiences with my friends defined the amount of fun I had during my freshman year. It was important for me to realize that I didn't need to join a fraternity or go to a highlighter party just because I had to feel like I fit in to the social aspect of college. SO because of this, lesson number two that I learned over my freshman year is that your friends have a major influence on the amount and what kind of fun that you have during college. For some people, that is the Greek system. But it doesn't have to be, and that is an important lesson that I took away.

Finally, I came into college knowing that classes were going to be hard. And oh is that an understatement. I know that some of you breezed by, not even having to check twice to see that you were pulling good grades. Others of us learned what it felt like to be sitting up at 4 a.m. studying of writing a paper just to try to keep a B in a class. The level of difficulty of your school year is pretty much tied back to your major, but even then, college classes are just difficult in general. Many of us learned what it was like to have professors who didn't really care to learn your name. Others had professors that they would go out to lunch with on a daily basis. It really just depends on where you went to school and what classes you were taking. But many of us had to learn how to really study, how to really write a 8-12 page paper, or how to survive a class where your entire grade was based on three midterms and one final. However, what I learned about college classes my freshman year is that you get what you put into it. I know that people have said that before, so it really isn't anything too knew or exciting, but it really is true at the college level. Classes turn into a reflection of the amount of work that you are willing to put in. SO, because of this, lesson number three that I was able to learn was the fact that even though classes were pretty difficult, if you put in the hard work, you will reap the benefits, most of the time. However, sometimes just don't work out like you want. But it's all about how you respond and pick yourself back up.

So I want to ask one more question before I wrap things up. This summer is an opportunity for each of us to really take some time and either get better at some things, or fall back into bad habits that we had before we went to college. So my question for everyone who is about to go on summer break is what will your summer consist of? What will be the defining moments of summer 2011 and what will you learn? I look forward to a great summer and I hope that you will follow me as I attempt to record some of it.

Thanks for tuning in and I hope you have a great rest of your week!

Signing off,
JD
"This Guy Over Here"