They titled the pamphlet, "The First Year Experience." It was folded neatly in thirds, printed in black block lettering, with the University crest nestled snuggly on the lower portion of the front cover. It would have been indistinguishable from the other pamphlets laying across my standard-issue desk, had it not been the same glaring orange color that one sees older alums wearing at football games - the kind of orange that should never, for any reason, be used to make an entire pair of pants.
Yet, there it was, promising to give me a glimpse of my life at Mr. Jefferson's University. The glossy pages of U.S. News and World report had already shed light on the academics at Virginia; summer orientation did its part to familiarize me with ISIS registration (a nightmare); the honor video sent to my home explained how an honor system evolved from a brawl on the Lawn that turned fatal for one professor (though secretly I believe the most deadly incidents on the Lawn result from an unsuspecting undergraduate attempting to wrestle away a Frisbee from Rotunda, Professor Elzinga's spirited pooch).
But at the time, as I sat back and opened the pamphlet, I had no idea who Professor Elizinga really was. I had not yet learned that he teaches nearly a thousand pre-Comm hopefuls every fall in his Econ 201 lecture. So fresh off the farm was I that I did not know that pre-Comm often means post-Med, as one semester of chemistry has students hanging up their lab coats in favor of a subscription to the Wall Street Journal. Most importantly, I didn't even know that it was O.K. to be post-Med or post-Comm or post-anything. Even changing a meal plan made me feel as if I might already be falling off-track. Second, third and fourth years, you know where I'm coming from. First-years, this is where you are going.
Unless you came from TJHSST along with 99 other members of your graduating class, chances are that you might feel a bit overwhelmed as fall rushes in, reducing your parents to small, waving bodies that ride slowly away in the family mini-van. Over the course of the next week, you will attend 67 lectures on safety, 12 hall meetings and at least 36 barbeque get-togethers. Rest-assured that every organization on-Grounds will dub their informational events "barbeques," whether they are serving pizza, fried chicken, or subs. It never hit me just how many of these barbeque meetings I attended and talked about my first year until my best friend from home asked one night, "Are you sure you don't go to school in Texas?
As first years hear again and again the wonderful memories of their upperclassmen peers and take to heart the old saying that "college is the best time of your life," some may start to wonder just how long it takes until they feel like the University is a place they call their own. Mastering the lingo is challenging enough, and just when you think you've got a grasp on the "Grounds" vs. "campus" issue, you learn that THE place to be at 2 a.m. is Littlejohn's on the Corner - and you've never been there. Nor has anyone asked you to go with them to try it out. It is very possible to be lonely even when you are living on a hall or in a suite with more roommates than you have ever had in your life.
It might sound as if this is a problem limited to shy girls who call their mothers every night and get a package of freshly-baked cookies every week from their grandmother at home. Yet, in fact, I recently met a first-year guy who admitted that he didn't feel as if he had found a niche quite yet, and was wondering if that might come in the spring when he rushed a fraternity. But he was less concerned about bonding over beer during fraternity rush than he was about his phone habits. "I still call my parents all the time. Do you think that's weird?" he asked. Little did he know he was talking to a girl whose phone bill nearly reached triple digits during her first year. I called my parents enough that year to send the entire staff of AT&T on an all-expenses paid trip to Bora-Bora, with enough profit left over to send each of their children to private school until graduation.
The truth is, no amount of phone calls or barbeques can carve out a place for you at the University. No orange pamphlet can provide you with the secret meaning of life as a first-year student, let alone explain how Dean at the O-Hill dining hall can swipe so many cards in so little time. If you are feeling a little out of place or a little skeptical about making friends-for-life with a roommate who still cannot pronounce your name correctly, give it time. Before you know it, you'll be ordering a sandwich from Littlejohn's like an old pro. You may even find yourself sitting down in front of the counter at the White Spot, ordering a hamburger with a fried egg on top. We here at the University call it a "Gusburger."
But you already knew that, right? It was on page 2 in one of those orange pamphlets.
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