Let me set the scene: you are walking through the Memorial Union Quad with your headphones on, listening to some moody playlist, with your coffee in hand. The breeze is swirling the orange, yellow and red leaves around. You made it to college, and it is just how you imagined.
Then your headphones die, and remember you have your 9 a.m. class in two minutes, your sweatshirt is soaked from rain, and you are not living the fairytale daydream you thought college would be. Most importantly, nobody is a capella singing Titanium in the showers.
In an interview with Anna Romero, a junior transfer student majoring in biology, she agreed that all new students are looking forward to new experiences and friends, but she also added that it can be a bit of a let down.
“When you actually go to college, you’re like, ‘oh’,” Romero said.
When we all first stepped into the MU Quad on our first Oregon State University tour, we saw all the current college students walking around like they were straight out of a movie.
We thought that one day we would be the main character on this campus, the Elle Woods of OSU, walking through the Quad in full pink attire with a chihuahua. However, when those dreams settled, we realized how dull college can be. No musical montage is playing anymore, and you have a test every week while trying not to get sick of dining hall food. Not so magical now.
Delany Mach, a fourth-year biohealth sciences major, spoke on her experience when she was first starting college.
“I was really looking forward to the experiences and meeting people, and joining clubs,” she said.
College was thought to be this magical escape from your past into a new world of adulthood. All the movies presented college as a time of insane social time and self-expression with no rules. However, is college really that?
Mach spoke about her later college years.
“I feel like I don’t have that spark that I used to have when I was younger, coming into college. So it just feels like most of it is just me trying to pass my classes,” Mach said. “I’ll definitely say that light kind of died.”
How did we let our sparks die? When did we lose our whimsical view of life? Most importantly, how do we fix it?
“But I think that’s why it’s important to get yourself involved and really build connections so you don’t feel drained out or kind of lonely in college.”
College is meant to be what we dreamed it would be. Maybe with fewer a capella groups singing around campus (still upset about this). But, college is meant to be that place where each person flourishes and finds their individual self.
It feels like forever ago when we would daydream about college and how magical it would be. Although it does not feel the same as when we first walked through the MU quad, we can still create that whimsical college experience.
