Rollercoaster States, Classes, and Adaptation.
Note to self, and all of you: keeping a journal is extremely helpful for remembering all that goes on during a week. I probably wouldn’t have been able to effectively write this blog post without it.
So it’s been longer than I intended since I last wrote, and for that I’m a little nonplussed with myself. Then again, a lot has happened and I’ve been incredibly busy with all the various facets of college. So here’s the weekly recap. As a LOT has gone on, it’ll probably be longer than most later posts.
The first couple of days here tended to follow a bit of a rollercoaster-esque pattern, as there would be ups and downs of good times and awkward ones throughout the day. I’d go from hanging out with my friends and having a great time to feeling somewhat odd because I wanted to meet people but felt like I couldn’t break into their giant groups. I mostly hung out with the friends I’d known in high school; of course I made other friends, but we didn’t really communicate much beyond exchanging numbers when we met and hanging out for the few hours we were together. There were highlights, though: a trip to the International District with one of my best friends and a few other kids where we unexpectedly found some sort of exhibition for sustainability plans for the city; a massive game of Apples to Apples that my friend and I were invited to and where I finally felt like I was getting involved here; meeting a new friend with a number of similar interests and opinions at an otherwise uneventful kick-off for new students. But generally it was a strange mix of some exciting and some disappointing.
That changed, however, on Monday when I went to a pizza party for the kids in my tower of the residence hall and met a few other people. That was fun, but the real turnaround came later that day when I headed to a concert the university had put on. My floor’s RA had sent out an email saying he would be taking a group of kids from our floor there, and so I decided to go. That was probably the best decision of the past week or so: I met a massive group of new people, including a fellow IB kid and aerospace engineer, and hung out and enjoyed music with them for the four-ish hours of the concert. The first two bands weren’t two great, but the third one–Allen Stone–was definitely the perfect choice for the headliner; at one point one of his songs inspired the kids in the very back to link up with their arms across each others’ shoulders and start swaying back and forth, which gradually flowed forward until the entire crowd was one mass of swaying, happy students. The same thing happened with the very last song played, one from the Civil Rights Movement, and was played as an encore. Coming together through the power of soul music, indeed.
After that was a late-night shopping trip, put on by the university, that I headed to with three other kids from the floor. The two-hour wait in line was pretty fun, the shopping was crazy, and the bus sing-alongs to Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, and the Pokemon theme song provided plenty of traveling entertainment. The rest of the night was spent hanging with my new friends in their rooms–apparently there had been a corner of incredibly social people on the other side of the hall, where I couldn’t see, which explained my loneliness. But now I’d found them, and life was grand.
The day after was similarly great and filled with people: I got books with the floor buddies, got a new Japanese horse poster to brighten up my desk space, and hung out with a large group from the floor after getting a hot dog at the residence hall barbecue (and I mean literally just a hot dog, they ran out of buns). The day really showed how I’d been very quickly accepted and liked by my new friends: they joked with me when I returned bearing only one sad hot dog and basically expressed how I had really needed to wait a long time and that, basically, they’d waited for me and kind of missed me. After the strange feelings of those first few days, it was pretty nice. Plus I found a friend who is also an aero engineer and loves drawing, like me, so that was awesome.
The next two days were kind of…interesting. Classes were generally fine, but I had an adventure with my elective, a class about technical drawing and CAD. I had been warned that it could be a very labor and time-intensive class, but I had figured I could handle it. But after my first two classes–a chemistry class that seemed pretty doable and a calculus class that had looked very intense and fast paced–as I walked into a classroom mostly filled with upperclassmen guys, I suddenly realized that maybe this hadn’t been the best choice. As the professor began lecturing about terms I had never before heard and detailing the labs and work we would be doing, I started to become afraid. I almost started crying out of fear of the workload I had taken on in my first quarter of college. So I ran to the engineering advising office and ended up speaking to the kindest, sweetest, most understanding woman ever. She completely understood my situation, agreed that I had chosen a very heavy workload for my first quarter, and helped me to drop the technical drawing class and change to a much easier one about volcanoes, as well as a seminar she ran that essentially just helped engineering women with their homework twice a week, I ended up drained at the end of that day and could barely focus on my work, but at least I now had a much better schedule.
The second day was decent: I only had one “class”, a math section that was fun because I knew a lot of the people in it, and afterwards I hung out with a number of friends at the student activities fair and went dorm-hopping and such. I also found a nice study spot in the library that I have now decided is my spot: it’s got just enough noise to not be awkward or creepy or anything, but is also quiet enough for me to actually focus in, and it’s backed up against some bookshelves so I can look out at everything. After doing some homework I went to two events: a computer science and engineering new student welcome (as I had randomly gotten direct admission to the CSE program here) and a Society of Women Engineers info session. I’m not going to describe them in a large amount of detail, but suffice to say that, from both of these awkward experiences, I learned that 1) probably the largest concentration of the absolute weirdest people of any engineering field go into computer science and engineering, and 2) apparently college students have no presentation skills whatsoever, which is honestly pretty sad. I mean, the information was good, but the SWE women who were giving the presentation really did not do a great job, which is really unfortunate. So once again it was another tiring day, and I went home pretty much exhausted.
Friday was pretty similar, with not much super exciting. After attending it for the first time, my volcanoes class does seem very awesome, however, so I’m excited for that and the welcome change it brings from my math and science-heavy schedule. I had planned to hang out with my family on Saturday and head up to my house to grab some more things, then come back down with them (they were going to the WSU Cougars game in Seattle) but unfortunately I found out that no buses run near my house on Saturdays, so I ended up getting picked up Friday night. It was nice, though: I got free, good dinner, plus the chance to sleep in my own bed and really sleep in in a nice quiet environment. Plus I got a delicious omelette and scones in the morning, The afternoon was full of hanging out and showing them around the UW in the pouring-down rain, but hey, family bonding time. I determined that it was a lot easier getting along with your family when you don’t live with them, because your time together becomes less of a chance for them to nag and more of time to catch up on everything that’s been going on. So I’m happy about that.
I was pretty sad to see them go, but just as I was unlocking my door to get back into my room, I saw some friends heading down the hall who told me that the crew (which was what we’ve taken to calling our friend group) was going to head out to dinner soon, and asked if I wanted to come (which I of course did). What followed was an entertaining romp to a dinner place close to our dorm, which booted us out at 8, and then an adventure to get frozen yogurt a little ways off campus. Then was an inception-style movie night, where we watched both Pitch Perfect and then The Breakfast Club, with both movies provided by yours truly. Today was pretty similarly chill: sleep, free food by crashing a barbecue, homework for a few hours, dinner at a really delicious sausage joint nearby, and a hot chocolate party with a few kids.
So that’s been it: the past week of getting used to college. The first three days of class were definitely a little weird, with all of us trying to figure out what classes to stick with and how to balance a social life with class and homework, but I know we’ll get better at it as we adapt to our new life. At least, I know I will.
20 Square Feet of Home.
Move-in was today and I’m finally here and unpacked. I still have some stuff packaged up, mainly school supplies that I’m not sure I’ll use and so will open as I need them, but for the most part things are somehow organized, tucked away, or displayed in the way they will be for the next nine-ish months.
Back home I had one decently-sized room to myself, with its own walk-in closet and small bathroom, so moving to a situation requiring living in one even-smaller room with three people and all the furniture and clothes and everything involved is definitely a major shift. I got the loft bed like I wanted, though, so I have my own little chunk of the room to myself. I had planned to turn the desk around under it to provide a little bit more space, as well as a little nook for hanging out and reading or whatever, but unfortunately given the amount of furniture crammed into this room (it’s a double room with three people’s worth of furniture in it, making it twice as cramped) I wasn’t able to do that. It’s definitely not a bad situation, and I made it work, but it’s still a bit unfortunate. That plus the fact that my bed is so high and the ceiling so low that I can’t sit up properly on it makes me somewhat disappointed, but ah well. That’s college for you: teaching you to live with less-than-ideal conditions.
Strange Items (or, I’m Packing Too Much Stuff) and Endings.
I’ve essentially been packing for college all summer–actually, much longer than all summer, if you count finding numerous packing lists as actually packing. The tempo of gathering what I’ll need has gradually picked up over the course of the summer, with forays to various stores becoming more and more frequent. The UW starts very late, compared to most other colleges, so I’ve had a bit of extra time to finish finding everything. And find everything I did, quite literally: there’s a small mountain range of all sorts of things in our bonus room, all waiting to be loaded into a vehicle come moving day. I combined the contents of a number of college packing lists from various sources to make sure I was getting all that people suggested, so there’s quite a lot. Maybe too much, but whatever. It’s better to have something and not use it than not have something and direly need it, in my opinion. This idea has led me to consider a number of items “necessary”, even though they’re probably not and really weren’t on any lists, such as:
- A stepstool–Given that I’m somewhat short, I reason that this will help me to be actually able to store things on top of my closet, like shoes or whatever. Also, could be good as a makeshift table or chair if necessary.
- A reusable filtering water bottle–I’m a bit paranoid about water fountains, so this will let me actually drink that water, as it’ll be immediately filtered of all the (believed) nasty stuff. Plus I’ll be able to get water from anywhere. Some lists suggested an actual water filter pitcher, but why get a big ungainly pitcher and have water bottles when you can just combine the two?
- A stadium blanket–Months back I was invited to an event for women in engineering at the UW and just so happened to win this. It’s plastic on one side and fuzzy on the other, which makes it perfect for grass, dirt, and other outdoor surfaces and makes using a towel unnecessary. I don’t know how much I’ll actually want to use it given Seattle rain, but at least I have it.
- A wireless router–My residential hall is one of the older ones and so has only Ethernet ports, with no Wi-Fi access, possibly making bed web-browsing rather difficult. I bought one of these for decently cheap and intend to put it to good use. Definitely not necessary, but handy.
Somehow I’ve ended up replacing more “typical” purchased dorm supplies, such as a printer or a coffee machine, with odd things people probably don’t always think of. Huh.
Also a little curious, but easy to understand, is the fact that I really haven’t felt any sadness about all of this until I started packing up small things from my room yesterday. Very little emotion has come from gathering all the dorm supplies I’ll need, as most of it is pretty new, or at least is stuff I haven’t used enough to have a deep connection to. With all of it I’m still in the mode of “going shopping for new stuff whee” and envisioning what my dorm space will look like and all of that.
But when I started packing up various things from my bedroom–a poster here, a photo there–the sadness and beginning homesickness and nervousness started to really hit me. These are the things I have a connection to, that were and are truly a part of my life, that I’ve gotten so used to seeing in my room that I barely register they’re there. There’s that photo of my old drill team during our glory days, doing the performances we worked so hard, so late into the night, to perfect. Over there is the model plane that my grandfather bought for me at the aviation museum, the day the fire of pursuing aerospace engineering was sparked in me. Next to it, the wood-and-clay paperweight my friend lovingly made for me for my first birthday party in years, honoring my favorite television show at the time. These are the things that really meant something to me, each one a marker for some point in my life, each one meaning home to me, and slowly, one by one, as I pack them up, they’ve been disappearing from the walls, the table, the bookshelf, everywhere I’ve come to expect them to be. Very slowly, home is getting packed up, crammed into one extra-large backpack and prepared to take to a new place, a new room, a new home. I guess this feeling is to be expected, but it’s still a strange, strong one to experience. I can’t help but think that this gradual disappearance of home, the creation of these gaps in my bedroom, is somewhat symbolic of how this place isn’t really going to be home anymore, not in the way it was for years.
I suppose at this point I should probably take a break to point out that I am a person who puts a great deal of meaning into symbols, traditions, rituals, “last time doing ___”‘s, that sort of thing. I guess my brain just gets a kick out of traditional-seeming stuff, being ISTJ and all that. So packing up all this stuff and visiting places I used to frequent is a big deal to me. On Saturday I visited the barn where I spent a full third of my life, dropping off my keys and employee handbook, collecting my last paycheck, and saying goodbye to the horses and ponies who had taught me so much, and I guess, in a way, saying goodbye and thanks to the people who had taught me so much and helped me to grow in innumerable ways. I took a lot of pictures to look back on, went around to all the horses, poked into all the rooms that I’d spent most of my time in, remembering that I had memories (if you can understand that; not actually recalling memories, but just knowing that you have ones of you there) of all these various places, and how they had changed over the six years I had been there. Somehow the whole thing had sort of a sacred, important air to it–the fact I was completely alone there helped. Was it overdramatic? Probably. Did it help bring me closure, help me to comprehend and accept that I was moving on to something different? I think so.
Another thing that will likely be blown out of proportion in my mind is finally returning a stack of library books. I’ve held this lot for nearly a month, not wanting to return them until all of them had been read, and just two nights ago I finally finished the last one, a fictional book. The library they came from is one from my childhood, one I remember spending countless hours in, exploring the nonfiction section for any new gems about whatever animal I was obsessed with at the time. I loved that library, and still do, and somehow returning these books to it for possibly the last time feels like a final goodbye, a similar feeling to the one I had at the barn. It’s much less intense, but it’s still there. That drive will probably also be my last drive in my first car, my big white pickup, for a long while, so it’ll be pretty sad for my ceremony-producing brain.
Not to mention that a lot of things I have been watching or reading lately have had the feeling of finality to them. One of the television shows I enjoy just came on again, sure, but many other shows I’ve watched over the years have come to a close. I haven’t properly watched one of them, Burn Notice, for a long while now, but the fact that it’s over still impacts me a little. One of my favorite animated shows ended this summer too, paralleling the end to one of the chapters in my life, and its final words definitely hold meaning for me. And that fictional book I read–it may be part of a series, but that book itself still ended, and I can feel that ending pressing on me as well. I’m probably just looking for endings, with this one holding such importance in my mind, but still. They’re there.
So there it is. I move in this Friday, early that morning, to begin the next chapter of my life. But in these last few days before I head off to college, finally spreading my wings (cliche, but I like it), I’m definitely feeling the importance and impact of this change, and the meaning of all the little things happening, as my mind takes every little thing and gives it symbolism and weight. Taking a favorite poster down and seeing a big blank wall space there, returning library books to a childhood library for possibly the last time, saying goodbye to a second home: it’s just making this whole change permanent, and massive, and almost making me not want it, until I realize that I’ve been waiting for this moment for over a year, and that I’ve finally made it here. So I guess that fact negates some of the fear, and gives me hope, because deep down I know that life is about to get pretty great, and that the next four years are going to be so worth the feelings I have now. After all, this isn’t really the end, it’s just a new beginningSimply put, another transformation.
Welcome to CollegeKid.
Aerospace-loving, tech-curious, knowledge-seeking, and eager to share it: that’s me.
Hi, I’m Carly, a freshman at the University of Washington and the author of this blog. For a while now I’ve been wanting to start a blog about various technical things–apps, gadgets, etc–but have felt like I wouldn’t be able to generate enough content for a purely informative one. Recently, however, I realized that I didn’t have to make one just about tech: it could be about that, sure, but it could also be about what I’ll soon be experiencing: college!
So here we are. This blog will be about a myriad of things relating to my college experience and other students’ experiences, from awesome apps and other technology, to health tips, to advice for academic success, to the everyday (and strange!) situations I encounter on my journey. I hope it’s insightful, informative, helpful, or just plain entertaining. Whatever you get out of it, I hope you enjoy.
CollegeKid 