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ABOUT THE QUICK TAKE Every Friday, the Quick Take columnists will offer their views on an issue of significance to American University. Notable members of the campus community will also be invited to contribute to this new feature. Suggestions for topics and other ideas from readers are welcome and encouraged, so please submit comments to edpage@theeagleonline.com. |
They’ve visualized their life at college from the moment they’ve opened their acceptance letters, but now two weeks into the fall semester, how does the actual experience compare? And for those of us that are already looking at our futures beyond 4400 Massachusetts Avenue, what should the first week of classes mean to us? Our Quick Take Columnists weigh in:
Derek Siegel:
A clean slate, shared with good friends
Sarah Palazzolo:
Nick Field:
The first week of classes, for the fourth time
A clean slate, shared with good friends
By Derek Siegel
College so far has been nothing less than spectacular, but it’s hard to put into words exactly how I feel. So much is happening so quickly that when my sister asks me what’s new, I freeze up. I’m living in a 20-by-10 feet room with somebody I met just a week ago. I share a bathroom with fift15een other guys. I’m learning the Metro system and trying to keep up with my course load and am constantly surrounded by 6,000 perfect strangers. “I dunno,” I tell her. “Nothing much.”
The hardest thing, though, about acclimating to college life is trying to remain true to myself despite the changing circumstances. I knew that college was going to be a fresh slate, but it’s almost too fresh — if that makes any sense. The people that I meet in my classes and in my residence hall have no idea who I am, which means that I can become anyone I want to be. So I try to act all witty and funny; I try to make a good impression so that people like me. That’s not unreasonable, right?
But then I catch myself in the middle of a situation and I think, “Who am I?” I’ve spent the last week-and-a-half with these people — my new friends. We eat meals together and swap stories. We have inside jokes and stay up talking late into the night. But I feel as if I’m so much more than the person that I’ve been showing them.
It’s like if I’ve crumbled into a thousand pieces and I need to rebuild myself piece by piece in order to become the student and person I want to be. It’s an exhausting task.
But you know what — while it sucks having to start from scratch, at least I’m doing it alongside people I care about. I’m going to be real right now: I’ve made some awesome friends in the last week or so. Just now I heard a knock at the door. It was less of knock, though. It was the strumming of a ukulele. I opened it to reveal four of my new friends, hovering around a piece of sheet music and screaming the lyrics to “Hey Ya”. I stood in my doorway and listened as they started to amass a crowd and thought, “These people are so freaking weird. I’m really glad that I’m going to get to spend the next couple years with them.”
Derek Siegel is a freshman in the School of International Service.
Adapting to AU
By Sarah Palazzolo
Warm afternoon sunlight tickles my skin as I stretch my arms and yawn lazily, book in hand.
“No, no — you don’t understand — Henry Kissinger once said...” A frustrated voice lifts from a cluster of students engrossed in a discussion of U.S.-Israeli relations. I grin and realize fully where I am. People are out on the quintessential Quad, hurrying to class with books under one arm, tossing a football, sprawling in the still-summer sun or spread out on a blanket with reading assignments and color-coded highlighters. This is exactly what I imagined college would look like.
However, there were a few things I had to learn. I can now navigate TDR with relative ease, comfortable with rush hour speed and the locations of utensils. I carry my reusable mug around with me in case I decide to stop for coffee. I walk with purpose in the Metro stations, stand to the right on the escalator and wait with my arms crossed so I won’t be confused for a tourist.
I arrived last week at AU with adequate knowledge of myself, a plethora of academic curiosities and no idea what to do or how to conduct my future. I assured myself that I would not be in the minority.
But that was my first surprise: this campus is full of impeccably driven students. Most people I have met are happily enrolled in a clearly charted, major-specific course of study not only because they want to learn, but because they want to emerge on the other side a relative expert in their field.
I’m not here because I’m trying to become a diplomat, or start my own business, or change the way Washington works — yet. I’m here because I want to find and establish a voice for myself in a conversation that means more than my own ambition. I’m here because I want to belong to a group of people who are smart, passionate, focused and engaged not only in what they do but in how they do it. The fact that I routinely overhear policy debates, philosophical discussions and musicians rehearsing on benches means something. It means that the intersection of self-fulfillment and service in the AU community is not urban legend: It is very real, and it comes from the character of the people who compose it.
Sarah Palazzolo is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences.
The first week of classes, for the fourth time
By Nick Field
What a difference three years can make. Back in late August 2008 when I started at American University as a freshman, the world was an entirely different place. George W. Bush was President, Osama bin Laden was alive and at large and Tiger Woods was the most dominant and universally beloved athlete in the United States.
All of that provided the background for my first classes here. Your first day of classes at college is an admittedly nerve-racking experience, as you come in with pretty much no idea what to expect. You worry about the professors, whether they’ll like you or you’ll like them; and above all you worry about how well you’ll do. Not to mention the additional pressures of fitting in to your new environment. Suffice it to say, your first week is quite an adventure.
As the years pass by, however, that feeling becomes less and less prevalent. You begin to get used to the routine until the first few days of the school year feel more burdensome than anything else.
By my sophomore year, it began to seem that every professor spent the whole class going over the syllabus, and that every syllabus was the same. Don’t miss class, don’t plagiarize, there will be a midterm, paper and final, etc. So, this week I entered class without any nervousness, as I pretty much knew what to expect.
If you're in my position, you’re worried more about the price of the books you’ll need, the workload, making time for your internship and, most important, making sure you graduate on time. You recognize many of the faces in your classroom from over the years, and you might even recognize some of the material. Instead of that life-changing event of three years ago, by now it all feels like part of a monotonous routine.
Fair warning freshmen: this feeling will begin long before senior year; in fact, it’ll probably begin before your first year even ends. Nevertheless, before you lay a series of incredible, unforeseeable events that you will have the privilege and horror to experience. Ultimately, though, you’ll find your time here will go by incredibly fast, and before you even know it you’ll be the jaded senior. So I’d advise you all to enjoy it while you can, both inside and outside the classroom.
Nick Field is a senior in the School of Public Affairs.
