Get out and get involved: A first year’s college experience

As someone who doesn’t handle change well, college is a whirlwind for me. Freshman year is kicking my butt, and it hasn’t even been a month.

I feel like an idiot everywhere I go — walking down the wrong side of the sidewalk, not knowing where things are, not realizing that your assignment descriptions are in the syllabus.

It hasn’t all been bad, though. Meeting new people and living on my own for the first time has been a nice change of pace, as I imagine it is for almost everyone here.

But I still get homesick from time to time. It’s usually the simple things like a movie I want to watch or sleeping in my own bed. I miss my turtles most of all.

College has kept me busy, though, whether it’s reading a new play for my history of theatre class or thinking of a topic to write about for English 101.

College has already taken me places I would have never thought I would have been able to go to before. The most important one so far is going to a fraternity party.

It was quite the experience. While I’m not much of a party person, I did have a good time and it was nice to try something new.

USD has so many new life experiences to try, but do I really take advantage of any of it? No, but it is nice to have options.

For the most part I am still doing the same things I have done in high school, like writing for the newspaper and getting involved in theater. I am trying something new, though — I am getting a radio show started at the campus radio station, KAOR.

That’s the great thing about college: There are new things to try just around the corner. Not everyone has to be adventurous, but an open mind can be just the thing to open you up to all new people and experiences. As students we should all be this way.

We go to a liberal arts college which basically means we can say whatever we want as long as we can back it up. That goes for what we do, too. We can do anything we want as long as we are not harming anyone.

So go join a club, heck join two, and meet some new people. Go to a party, hang out with some friends, because that’s what college is about just as much as it is about getting an education.

Maybe you’ll find out change isn’t such a bad thing after all.