Right now, the campus is still. At this point in the year, most students have packed up and left. Their absence is already being felt and unfortunately, it doesn’t feel very good. As someone who was personally counting down to the time when there was no line at Starbucks in the morning and no competition for treadmills at the Rec Center at 6:00 am, something about this feels wrong. It’s off. It’s that feeling when you complain about all the fishermen on the river banks only to return a week later and it’s just you and the fish. Instead of celebrating the isolation you reflect on how poignant chaos can be.
Don’t expect the sadness to linger. There won’t be time. The first summer orientation session kicks off in exactly 23 days. As a bystander, it doesn’t matter what campus you’re on –whether you’re in Omaha or Oxford—some orientation snapshots always look the same. Faces full of bewilderment, excitement, nervousness and anticipation. And those are just the parents! Orientation is for just that—orienting. In just a day and a half, it’s a jam packed schedule focusing on course registration, new student advising and simply getting a feel for the place.
Naturally, orientation segways into the real thing. College life. A new beginning whose structure, in some ways, is right on par with a laboratory. In fact, one definition of laboratory is, ‘a place for practice, observation or testing.’ And what a practice run this will be. Before you live (happily ever after we hope) with a spouse, you will live with a roommate. Before you devote your life to Early Childhood Education, you will explore comparative religion, political science, a semester of German and possibly French. Before you master spaghetti bolognese, you will be tempted with all kinds of foods and discover that the human body can function on a steady diet of mozzarella sticks and grilled cheese. Before you pick Minneapolis as your home after Oxford, you will have traveled to Beijing, Dijon and Washington, DC. During these “college years”, most of your best friends will live within a 1 mile radius of your hall and the majority of you will be sheltered from any kind of serious crime.
It’s unique. It’s unusual. But most new beginnings are.
For some of you, you’re transitioning from the only home you’ve ever known….. to a world full of freedom and tremendous responsibility. If you’re smart, you’ll follow the advice National Geographic dispenses to its audience daily: ‘Live Curious.’ It’s a necessary way to live, especially during that first year. It means combining your passion for Zoology and Women’s Studies. It means at least listening to what the College Democrats have to say at their meeting even though your heart is Republican. It means being open to that casting call from the Theatre Department for a hula dancing violinist dressed in purple and lending a helping hand when your roommate decides your door would look more festive with swabs of carpet.
Like I said, it’s unusual but most new beginnings are.
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