Welcome to my first official blog entry for Tufts. This has been long due, but since I have been practicing The Art of Being a College Student by choice for the past two years, I am a pro at procrastinating. I promise to get better in a while, when I shall channel my energies into a blog post in order to procrastinate on homework.
A year ago, procrastinating on homework generally meant obsessively stalking all possible information-unearthing devices (by which I mean Google, Facebook, and the likes) to make my high-school fantasy of being at college as complete as possible. I would have liked to say that I succeeded in this noble mission, for I did indeed believe so for a while. I was totally prepared for college. No matter what, I would not be overwhelmed. What, then, shattered my illusion? I came to Tufts.
Tufts is beautiful. Period.
I have not seen one photograph of Tufts, nor heard one account, that has done it justice. My first week here was literally spent walking around campus with my jaw hanging open. And it’s not just the place. At the risk of sounding cheesy, everything here rocks my socks! The people, the food in the dining halls (yes, that’s very important), the classes, the professors- everything is amazing. Everybody’s so involved and passionate in what they do, it’s inspiring. People here are here because they want to be, doing things they want to do. I sound like a shameless PR agent for Tufts, but Tufts is still new and shiny for me.
The first weeks at Tufts have been absolutely crazy, even when I compare them to the weeks leading up to it. Packing your entire existence in two huge suitcases and moving to a different continent altogether might seem like a Herculean task, but it’s nothing in front of Orientation week! Being inhumanly fun aside, it is also physically and emotionally draining. An introduction to your classmates does not get more awe-inspiring than Dean Coffin’s Matriculation speech. Or more awesome than President Bacow playing Bob Dylan on his iPod for the gathering. Or funnier when it is revealed to you that the Class of 2013 has 1313 students. Although that fact made me doubt the extent of manipulative powers our beloved Admission officers possess, whoever said 13 was an unlucky number?
Okay, so college is infinitely different from high school. There are way too many choices, both academic and otherwise. There are definitely more awesome courses and opportunities. You could be taking a course on the Cartoonist in American Culture in the fall, and spend winter break working in Guatemala. You can do research during spring, and organize orientation for the next class during summer! But then, there are also huge amounts of homework. You’ll have to learn to manage time to even be able to get started on homework. To wake up in time to attend your first class (I have real problems with this one). To remember to eat (from personal experience). There’s also homesickness- missing family, friends, the food back home, especially when like me, it is your first time in foreign lands. But you figure it out. Tufts embraces you, and you learn.
P.S. Ignore the lolcode. I find it, being a nerd with her own set of superstitions, a necessary evil. kthxbye!
