My high school physics teacher used to tell us, “do whatever you want as long as you’re not the one they’re talking about the next day.” To Mr. Smith, I would like to apologize sincerely. I don’t know how it happened, but come fall 2006 I found myself doing a lot of things that I would never have done before, and not in a good way.

Before I knew what was happening, I was dropping my calculus class to avoid failing (I’m taking it now at Montgomery College, which we locals affectionately refer to as MK-yep that’s college with a k). Oh well, I rationalized, who doesn’t have a fun “well I failed that class but still managed to graduate with honors” story?

Socially, I didn’t fare much better. I relied heavily on the “typical college student” stereotype, which led to a lot embarrassment and nights that I don’t quite remember. I even did the whole string of meaningless relationships thing, including a guy who liked to try on my clothes and thought it was sexy to say things like “I need you on the bed now” (hopefully this issue goes out only to incoming freshmen).

Not surprisingly, by winter break I was a complete wreck. I often resorted to crying in frustration, but even then, did not see a problem-I romanticized the situation with proud declarations like, “I’d rather feel this than nothing!” To top it all off, my doctor called just as I was getting home to tell me that I had mono. After exhausting my arsenal of complaints and very effectively making my entire family hate me, I was left with nothing to do but lie in bed and think. It hit me pretty suddenly that I had had a terrible semester.

One of the worst sensations I’ve ever felt was looking back over the semester and wishing that I would’ve done everything differently. Trust me, the last thing you want is to reflect on as large a chunk of time as that and come up with nothing more than, “oh shit.” In retrospect, I would have let myself enjoy my classes and do things that I liked instead of things that I thought I should be doing and I definitely wouldn’t have wallowed in self pity and alienated the people who I cared about.

With these regrets in mind, I decided to make the next semester better-there’s a lot to be said for just deciding to do something. Knowing how easy it had been to get caught up in doing stuff for no real reason-and no longer afraid to admit that I enjoyed writing my research paper or that I’d rather stay in and watch a movie on Saturday night-I was much happier.

My advice to incoming freshman is not to avoid my specific mishaps, but to think (before you start to stockpile mistakes) about what is important to you, what you want from school-not in a big-picture-what’s-your-major kind of way, but in regards to the day-to-day stuff-and then pursue it. If no one else is up for it, or it goes against the grain (or if you’re one of those alternative types, with the grain), do it anyway and you’ll probably love it.

So Mr. Smith, I’d like to apologize again, because I couldn’t care less who’s talking about me the next day, but you’re damn right I’m going to do whatever I want.

Kate is a sophomore in the school of Architecture. She can be reached via e-mail at kgallagher@wustl.edu.

 Print This Post

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 25th, 2007 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Forum. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.