This is not a finished project. I would appreciate some feedback.
The stresses of college life:
I am a freshman at Augustana University. To type that out feels almost formulaic now. Being a freshman at Augustana University is almost an identity all its own. One that, I will grant you, I chose for myself.
A day in college starts like every other day. I wake up, take a shower, eat breakfast and go to class with a smile on my face. I’m so sorry, I couldn’t get through typing that while keeping a straight face. Here is how the day starts as a college freshman. I hear my alarm go off. I think to myself, today I will actually wake up at 7 am and feel as though I have accomplished something. This is followed by three, rather violent, strikes to the snooze button which starts the entire process over again at 7:30 am (sometimes 7:40 if I was feeling particularly irresponsible the night before). This is then followed by putting on clothes. I would say getting dressed, but that would be a little too liberal with the term. I wear the same outfit every day: Jeans, T-shirt, light sweatshirt and a pair of tennis shoes with holes in them (I keep promising myself that I am going to purchase a new pair…).
The following six minutes are spent walking to a class on the other side of campus. Augustana has a very small campus and no building is particularly far from where I live. This becomes irrelevant very quickly as South Dakota days in winter can be as cold as -30 degrees Fahrenheit. Humid windchill can make even the most trivial a stroll into a nightmarish expedition. It is in these six minutes that the tone for the rest of the day will be set. There are two possible states of mind one can have when making the trek to the first class of the day. The first state of mind: what a fantastic opportunity I have to be here at a university where the goal every day is to learn something new and exciting… you get the picture. The second state of mind is not so much an internal monologue, but a feeling. It is the feeling of the existential dread toward one’s self. There is much to think about before reaching the door of the first class, and yet there are no thoughts at all. It is the accumulated feeling of the mounting college debt, rigorous classes that seem impossible to pass, the fact that one is living alone without the guidance of parents or coaches at all, and finally nearly every minor inconvenience associated with college life that seems the dominant factor in life. The choice between the two is made in a split second, and it will set the tone for the rest of the day. Good luck.
The day finally seems to start when the professor begins…professing? Is that the correct term? I don’t know I am not an English major. That aside, this is the start to the rest of the day. To me, it feels like going on a rollercoaster ride while trying to read the greatest works of Shakespeare on 5X7 index cards. It is possible to accomplish, but not without a burning headache associated with it. That is all I really have to say about classes. To be entirely honest, I find most class material fascinating and enjoyable, but my perception of it still stands as it is.
Before I go on, if you happen to be reading this for legitimate advice, you will not find any other than this: Scurvy is a real possibility in college, so eat an apple every once in a while.
After class begins the second phase of college life. The life part. If you happen to have evening classes, this phase can happen before the class phase. I will break this down into some sections.
Food: If you are on the meal plan, you will be eating commons food almost exclusively. For the first week and a half of being a college student, this is the best part of college. After the initial baptism of glorified cafeteria food, one realizes that the food is… well… glorified cafeteria food. The food will eventually taste the same. I mean really taste the same. There will be a point when the pancakes that one has to eat will taste exactly like the lasagna of that same evening. This is accompanied by the feeling of being ripped off or cheated out of something. Every evening you will be haunted by the thought that you had this meal before that day. This is because you did, it was just a different color. You might think to yourself that going to a restaurant every once in a while, is, therefore, a good and justified idea. You will go to a restaurant. You will get the check for having the privilege of eating off campus. You will not entertain the thought of going back to a restaurant until you the night after you cry yourself to sleep over the commons asparagus.
People: It’s not like high school. Some people will be friends with you, most will not care about you at all. I attend a school with a student population that is not significantly larger than that of my high school. I have seen nearly every student on the campus at one point or another, and yet, there is not a single person on this entire campus that I have a particularly strong, negative opinion about. I am not here to analyze why this is, but if I had to guess it would be that college students are simply better at being people. Some people will be your friends. If you did things right, none of these people will be anything like you. Many will have radically different political views, just remember that you made the decision to go to a liberal arts school.
I just watched one of my friends eat a piece of a ceiling tile. That is not particularly relevant to the topic, but that is the price that I pay for writing in a public hangout area. I don’t know what compelled him to consume a part of a fire-retardant ceiling tile. I honestly have no words and have given this too much thought already.
The stresses of college life are… I might actually finish this paper one day, but honestly, I have lost my direction, I haven’t posted in a while so, I am just making up for lost time. I will end it with my asparagus and people crying joke because I think it’s funny. Again, this is not a finished product.
