I am writing this blog post on the 9th of September, exactly twenty-six days after moving in to the University of South Carolina, aka my new home. The first week and a half were a a whirlwind of sorority activities and new people. I always knew I was ready to be out of the house and on my own nevertheless being in a new place with no familiar faces was a struggle. I was lost half of the time and the other half of the time I was lonely. Yes, I Tyson Blanton was surrounded by over a thousand girls for sorority recruitment and was still lonely. It took me some time to figure out that I was not lonely, I was just in the wrong place surrounded by people that I felt that I did not fit in with. This realization prompted me to drop of of sorority recruitment fourteen hours before the Bid Day activities commenced. I do not regret this decision one bit and I believe it was the first step in college that will shape me to become a truer version of myself. Everyone believe college is about being independent and part of that is true but I have learned that a bigger part of being in college is learning to depend on the people that surround you. I have made friends, asked complete strangers for help, e-mailed professors countless number of times and made calls back home for advice and just to complain. I may be independent in the sense that my mother does not make me lunch every day and my dad does not edit my papers before turning them in but I am not independent from this university and the new friends I have made.
When envisioning the "college experience" I pictured a roommate who was my best friend, studying late into the night for my classes, professors that lectured in a monotone voice and weekends filled with parties. However, in the real college experience it is not quite the same. I did random assignment to get my roommate because I felt that it would be a great way to start off fresh. My roommate is not awful by any standards but we are completely different people. She is from Prosperity, SC about twenty minutes from here. She is courteous for the most part and a nice person, but it is blatantly obvious that we come from different worlds even though our home towns are less than two hours apart. The one thing that drives me crazy about my roommate is that she smokes, chain smokes and put on her roommate application that she did not. She obviously does not smoke in our room or in Patterson but the smell still contaminates all of her stuff and I feel that it is slowly spreading to my stuff, Frebreze is definitely becoming my best friend. We do not talk very much and she goes home almost every weekend so I do not feel that we will have many problems but it is still a let down from my high expectation of college life. My classes on the other hand are not quite as overwhelming as I had always heard they would be. All of my classes are done by 12:50 every day which leaves me plenty of time to do all of the class work that has been assigned to me. Most of my classes have professors that have a zealous approach to the class they teach and though I may not be on the edge of my seat every class I am also not fighting sleep every minute either. When I did not fully grasp something in class my professors are more than helpful and the textbooks assigned are full of extra information that make me feel secure in my knowledge.
My college experience thus far has been short, educational, an eye-opener, filled with new activities and maybe a little overwhelming. There are still many things I want to do including find a job, volunteer, join a club, do intramural sports and most importantly keep experiencing new things. Everyone is nervous to start a new stage in their lives and people are almost always afraid of change, I am no exception but what I am most afraid of is missing out on an experience that may have an immense impact of my life. For that very reason I am making it my goal to do new and exciting things every chance that I can and for me college is my chance to do these things.
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