Benn Johnson
High School Graduate of 2010
Attending University of North Texas
Trends Editor 2010, newspaper
1. Disperse and connect, then narrow and attach. Basically, this is a rule for about the first two to four weeks of college, as well as orientation. When freshmen first arrive on campus, everyone is in the same boat. Nobody knows anybody else, and everyone is relatively lost. This makes people change their attitudes and allows you a perfect window of opportunity to meet as many new people and make as many positive impressions as you can. For the first few weeks, do not worry about who you are going to be real friends with and who you are going to drop; just disperse your reach to as many different people and as many different types of people as possible. Don’t just join a frat or sorority, and don’t just hang out with old high school pals. Find everyone.
College, for some, is the first opportunity to completely start over, and you need to begin this opportunity with with a gigantic groundwork of people. It is extremely necessary to begin this step and complete it within the first few weeks, because it seems after this initial period of intermingling and openness, sadly people begin to close off and find their niches. Eventually, the “narrow and attach” phase sets in. This is where it is perfectly fine to start deciding on just who you might want to be close friends with for the rest of college, and possibly for the rest of your life. At this point, you can narrow it down to a best friend and a group of at least about four, but you need to remember to keep a lot of open connections going, if possible.
2. There are more ways than one to have fun. There is a big stigma attached with university life which is associated with alcohol and partying. While it would be naive to say that this doesn’t exist in a collegiate atmosphere, it is also naive to assume that partying is the best way to have a good time in college. Honestly, I attended three parties my freshman year, and not a single one compared to the activities I involved myself with on a daily basis. This is why it is important to live in an active dorm, and to be extremely connected with your core group of friends. Put out feelers for things going on on campus, look at posters inside your dorm and around campus, and make sure you never miss an event that promises free food or live music. And if you truly live on a campus full of boring people, in a terribly sparse town, get creative. From the advent of the annual September 12th holiday, “Barefoot Day,” to the late-night Seven Eleven runs, to taking part in an underground dodge-ball league, my freshman year was full of an amount of spontaneous fun probably only paralleled by my days as an imaginative small child. You don’t have to party to have fun–you just have to seize the day where you can.
Of course, these steps aren’t a clear-cut way to end up on top in college, but if you incorporate the ideas into your basic agenda as you enter college, there is a much higher chance that you will succeed, internally. Ultimately, college cuts the lifelines from above you; you no longer have a direct path to follow or anything pushing you to continue along it. People must fill the gap; you have to surround yourself with positive influences, and create a support system for yourself. In the end, it all comes down to relationships; to me, this is why college exists: it teaches us how to build relationships with each other, with our beliefs and knowledge, and with our whole environment. If you realize this about college, then you will understand the hardships you’ll go through, and you can truly make the best of it.
