When we first set foot on campus, every one of us did whatever we could to meet people. We attended events alone, introduced ourselves to anybody and everybody and tried to spend as little time as possible alone.
In retrospect, we were all plagued by that unskippable cutscene of pre-rehearsed conversations that we’re all familiar with: What’s your name? Where are you from? What’s your major? What’s your name? Where are you from? What’s your major? This repetitive poem of acquaintanceship was the soundtrack of my freshman orientation week, as I heard it ring through the streets of North Campus on a regular basis.
Now that we’ve moved past that era of our college experience, we often make light of the festivities we participated in on our quests for friendship. Yet there is definitely something to be said about its effectiveness, considering we now have people in our lives who were once strangers before we triggered the infamous cutscene.
There is never another time in your life when you meet as many people your age as you do the first couple weeks of freshman year. I remember trying to meet anyone I could during O-Week to establish my roots on this giant campus. Yet I wonder: When did I stop trying?
At what point did I decide the people I surrounded myself with were sufficient, and I did not need to search for more? When did I stop chasing the thrill of growing my network? When did I start taking all the opportunities this campus provides for granted?
I reflected on the first few nights of freshman year when I would attend events where I knew nobody, introduce myself to a million people and leave with a bunch of Instagram follow requests. I couldn’t believe it. Did I really do that?
My first thought was “Wow, I could never do that now.” Yet then my second (and much more impactful) thought was “Why?” Why couldn’t I do that now? The campus is big, there are still people to meet and campus events happen every day, so genuinely, what is stopping me? I realized there was no legitimate reason why I couldn’t put myself out there in the same way I did freshman year. This started a new social experiment that I have been participating in, which I like to call, “Living like a freshman.”
My trial in this experiment was to attend an event without the assurance of walking in the door with someone else. The event I chose to attend was a student concert. I walked into the room and tried to do what I thought any freshman would do: introduce myself. I started mingling, talking to anyone who seemed approachable. It was one of my more favorable experiences from the semester, and I learned that when given the opportunity, people are more than willing to make a new friend.
Another staple from freshman year was the phenomenon of treating recent acquaintances as old friends while we navigated the campus community. This phenomenon presented itself, but not in typical fashion. After my concert experience, I found myself running into people I remembered meeting during my own O-Week. I was flooded with such a rush of nostalgia towards that time in my freshman year that it did indeed feel like I was seeing a long-lost friend. This led to a nice rekindling of friendships that I did not even know I missed. Additionally, the people I met at the concert were added to my roster of passing “hellos” that I now receive on campus.
This little experiment felt rejuvenating, like the rekindling of my entire college experience. I feel as though it can be very easy to take our campus for granted and isolate ourselves in our existing cliques, but I think it’s important to recognize the vast opportunity for community.
We only get four years at Cornell. Four years to meet people, make memories and nurture relationships. Who knows, maybe the best connection you’ll make on this campus hasn’t even happened yet.
Jared Miller is a sophomore in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He can be reached at jmm792@cornell.edu.
