Posted by Blair Warren
The purpose of this column is to express honestly what it's like to be a first-year and what college is all about in my "newbie" opinion. I believe the freshman experience should be shared. Hopefully, it will give other freshmen a sense of comfort and give upperclassmen a sense of nostalgia for their initial innocence and naivety. This is why I'm writing this column bi-weekly to share my awkward moments and hope that my struggles are somewhat relatable.
I've met so many fascinating, diverse people here and it's only the beginning of my first year. Honestly, it's inspiring how truly creative and thoughtful everyone is. Creative Thought Matters, am I right? Before I came here I was expecting college to be a difficult transition. I thought I would be homesick and feel out of place but Skidmore has been so welcoming that it hardly even feels like a transition. Of course, it's obvious that I'm a freshman. You can probably tell by how we confusingly look up at Tisch and wonder if it's Bolton or how lost we look in the dining hall, standing near the pizza when all we want is a bowl of cereal. It's definitely noticeable, but I'm okay with that. It gives me an excuse to mess up. If I forget where my class is, I can just say, "Oh, whoops. I'm a freshman!" As my years continue here, though, I'll probably have forgetful moments and I'll have to admit that I'm no longer a freshman and that I should probably get the hang of things already. A lot of unexpected things have happened to me so far. On one of my first few nights here, my fellow freshmen and I decided to scope out the party scene. Considering our year, we figured it would be harder to get into these upperclassmen parties so we went first to Uncommon Grounds and picked up a few free bags of day-old bagels. We thought this would be a good bargaining chip. As we got closer to the party, my friends started to second-guess the bagels but I marched right up to the senior at the door, lifted the bags in the air and said, "We have bagels!" They practically begged us to come to their party. One of the best decisions I've made at Skidmore, for sure. As a way to meet people, my friends and I thought it would be funny to yell "Marco!" in the dorms and see if anyone responded with "Polo!" Unfortunately, all anyone ever said was, "Sorry, I'm not Marco," or "Who?" One night, we dared my friend to knock on a stranger's dorm room door and ask for soap. I don't know why, but we thought this would be entertaining. A few moments later, she came back with soap and said, "It's Marco's soap! I have Marco's soap!" We thought this was hilarious and decided to stop yelling Marco in the dorms after that (if you're reading this Marco, sorry about that). Overall though, the first few weeks here have been wonderful, confusing and certainly entertaining. I am looking forward to sharing more of my random freshman experiences with you all in this column as I stumble my way through the life of a newbie here at Skidmore College!