Uh, College?

   “Those are the best years of your life! You meet your life-long friends in college!” is all I heard before coming to Vanderbilt. The excitement and enthusiasm really encouraged me to look forward to my freshman year. Then again, it’s not that hard for people to get excited where I come from. Parents get ecstatic just to see their kids graduate from high school.  They’re glad their kids at least lived to see their 18^th birthday and didn’t get shot, land in jail, or become drug addicts. Most of my friends had at least one or two kids before their senior year. These travesties are the life my community knows. It’s already set up for us, so when we overcome those barriers it’s a huge deal. Parents really don’t expect much of their children, except to graduate from high school. That’s enough for most parents .That itself is the equivalent of them winning the lottery, it makes them so happy. And, if for some reason their son or daughter is lucky enough to pursue a college education, they’ll probably have a heart attack…not really, but it’s icing on the cake.

    Coming from a background like the one I just described to Vanderbilt was a HUGE transition. Talk about a culture shocker! I was so used to being around minorities all the time that it was hard for me to get accustomed to attending a predominately white school. I felt really out of place. The first two days in my hall, girls were already talking, going out to parties in groups, and just having a good time. Meanwhile, I was in my room thinking, “What the hell have you done coming here, you don’t belong here.” It seemed like the girls just talked and automatically clicked. I didn’t have that instant mutual connection with anyone. I didn’t even know how to talk to them. I would sit in my room and pretend I was busy so that people wouldn’t think I was a total loser staying in when everyone else was going out. I would talk to my friends from back home and they would tell me what a blast they were having at college. Most of them ended up going to a local university about thirty minutes from our high school. It was dreadful. I didn’t want to tell them what a hard time I was having over here. It was embarrassing. It made me even more homesick. I wanted to be around my friends and have a good time as was expected in college.

    Don’t get me wrong, I did have people I could have occasional conversations with, but I didn’t consider them my friends. They were just people I would say hi and bye to in passing, or talk about homework with. I didn’t have those types of friends that I could trust with my secrets. Not like my friends back at home. As the semester progressed, I did meet some nice girls that I could “chill” with. I could go out to parties with them, talk to them, but I still didn’t have confidence in them to talk to them about me. At the same time, I felt even more homesick. It had been a long time since I had seen my family. That gap from August till November killed me. My family is really close-knit. In my culture, it’s typical to have a big family and be really close to them. They would call me regularly because they were so excited I had made it to college. They wanted to know everything; how I was doing, if I liked it down here, if I missed them. It was hard to have to lie. I would tell them everything was great when deep down I longed to go back—I wanted to transfer. The only person who knew how I felt was my sister, my best friend. Talking to her helped me decide to give it some time and see if things changed by the end of the year. Luckily, they did. I built various friendships…and remember those nice girls I told you about earlier? I became closer to them and now we’re living and doing this blog project together.

    Everything is not perfect, and I do not expect it to ever be. I’m still struggling to get accustomed to Vanderbilt even though it’s my second year. This year has been better though.  I’ve become increasingly close with some people that have really helped me through and have had moments that are stereotypical, memorable, wild college experiences J

 

Image borrowed from po.b5z.net.

Comments

[Nom De Plume]

I'm glad you hung in there. Transferring can be tough because you have to start all over again, and you realize then that no place is perfect. You'll look back later and be glad you stayed.

[Writing Conversations]

Thanks so much for the feedback, Nom De Plume. I was excited when I saw we'd received our first comment from someone we didn't know, and ran to tell the author of this article, haha! We will have at least one more article up in the next couple days, so check back!