By Luis Vazquez-Vega
Campus News
Before I entered college, I spent every summer reading the Harry Potter series at least once. It wasn’t to scratch at my fanboy itch, or make a local town record. And it wasn’t because I wished the world I lived in had an ounce of that wondrous magic immortalized on those pages. (Okay, maybe it was because of that – even at 19 I still wish I received my Hogwarts letter.)
The main reason I reread the bedrock of fandom culture was because of the simple idea that a boy was whisked off from a familiar yet miserable environment to an entirely different setting that brought out the best of him, and through the seven-year journey, would discover himself as a person.
Growing up in a small town, I was never offered a chance to become different. Everyone knew each other down to their secret and sometimes illegal activities. A 90-degree shift was a rupture in routine, an infection that would cause the white blood cells of the town to attack. I lived for 18 years with the label “quiet innocent kid” hanging over my head.
One year of college changed that. At the risk of using a cliché, the first year is always the year of new beginnings. I came back to my small town – my Dublin, for all the James Joyce readers – different, mind-wise. Looking back, I realize my metamorphosis can be simplified into three guidelines:
Talk to strangers as if they were old friends
Once I was left to fend for myself, I immediately felt terrified of interacting with others. Orientation helped, but that was only a small group of people. What about your roommate? The inhabitants next door? The hippie girl you’re partnered up with in class?
If you weren’t looking to make any friends, online universities could’ve given you that introverted experience for thousands of dollars less. The bottom line is: by physically appearing on campus, you’ve admitted to yourself that you want to open up to someone and establish a network of friends and acquaintances. Starting is the hardest part, however.
In high school physics, we’re taught that the force necessary to move an object at a state of rest to a state of motion is much greater than the amount of force keeping the object in motion. In layman’s terms, it takes a lot more energy to start than to continue. The best solution to the interaction problem, therefore, is to start as if you knew that person before. Be casual, pretend you two have known each other for a long time. In less than a month after entering college, I found out the preferred restaurants on and off-campus, the best times to set up my schedule for future years, and the optimal dorm to live in. An unfortunate bee incident in my philosophy class led to a funny discussion with the seemingly intimidating upperclassman next to me, and within a month I had found a group of people to eat with during lunch.
Your mental health MUST take precedence over everything
Sleep deprivation, depression, and social anxiety are as rampant on school grounds now as STIs were in the ‘70s. No doubt you have or will experience it at least once, and the fear of a recurrence will remain embedded in your mind. It’s okay to feel like that: you’re not alone. To quote a self-help book, emotions are the single most relatable thing on Earth. Let it out in a positive manner. Take a breather and watch an episode of “The Office.” Pick up that YA novel buried under three feet of textbooks and crack it open. Put on your earbuds, lie down on the grass outside, and look at the stars as you listen to your favorite album. Exercise (ironically, putting stress on the glutes takes out the stress in the noggin). And if you feel defeated, talk to someone, be it a therapist, a friend, or your parents. Even talking during the days you’re copacetic feels relieving.
Become the person you looked up to in middle school
I know, the article is supposed to be about helping you become comfortable with yourself and your college. So why should I propose that you become someone else? It’s simple: I’m not.
Middle school is the time when we are simultaneously the cruelest and the most anxious beings on the planet. We asked for nothing we got, be it frequent breakouts, metaphorical baseball bat thwacks to the gut, or unspoken physical harassment, “all in good fun.” In my case, I was weak and alone, with no interests to share with my classmates. I would often look at the table on the other side of the room, wondering how everyone was so comfortable with each other and with themselves. Currently, I try to socialize as much as I can for both myself and the person on the other end. I’m also trying to take chances or put myself in uncomfortable situations, so when I look back I can see the experience they gave me rather than regret.
The mixture of time and an unfamiliar surrounding result in an unavoidable occurrence in you: change. Whether you call it growing up, growing out, or simply transitioning through life, change in college is inevitable. But as long as you take charge of the differences in you and check that they remain genuine, you can tame the lion in the college den.
Luis Vazquez-Vega is currently a student at SUNY New Paltz. He aspires to write his first novel before he graduates.
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