"Use well thy freedom" plaque on the side of Parrish
This week was Ride the Tide, the two days for accepted students to visit and decide if they would like coming here. It was so exciting to see all the specs running around, trying the activities and attending classes, and it reminded me of my own time at Ride the Tide, when I first met a few of the people I would come to be good friends with. I couldn’t help but reflect on how far my classmates and I have come since our days as specs.
For one thing, we’ve all had to become much more responsible, and that’s something that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I know there’s a big difference between real adulthood and being independent in college, but I do feel that my classmates and I have grown up a lot over the course of the year. It’s strange to go from a whole life of having parents/guardians and teachers tell you what to do, and overnight find that you’re in charge.
From the first night on your own in your dorm, there’s no one to tell you to brush your teeth and go to bed because it’s late. And yes, we’re college kids and most of us keep really strange hours. (I try to get at least 7 hours of sleep each night, though I’ve fallen short of that this week.) Granted, we have RA’s, who can be helpful in a lot of different situations, but they are not your parents, and they are not the hall police. Even as freshmen, we’re expected to more or less take care of ourselves. At first it’s hard, and at times it gets tiring, but ultimately, it’s pretty freeing. I can’t speak for everyone, but I know I’ve been surprised that I really can act like an adult.
In high school, I was always trying to find ways to miss a day of school. I can’t completely explain why; I’ve always like learning, but in high school so many classes moved slowly, and at times I was just bored. Now, even when I’m tired or feeling a little under the weather or behind on school work or the newspaper, I never let myself miss class. Maybe that’s because I find almost all of them interesting, and they move so fast that it would be hard to catch up. Still, I think a lot of it is wanting to be a responsible adult.
As I’ve said in my last two posts, there’s a lot of freedom here, and at times we all tend to act like little kids. But when papers need to be written, problem sets have to be finished, and plans need to be made, we’re able to step up and grow up. Now maybe that’s just something that happens when you move away from home, but even if it is, I can’t imagine a better place for it to happen than at Swarthmore.
