Last Friday we had our influx of freshmen into Taylor. Swallow Robin has somewhere around twenty new faces getting used to our wacky home. I have come to notice an odd occurrence among the upperclassmen, something that I noticed when I was a freshman. It's actually rather annoying, I think; and it doesn't give our new friends their fair due.
Freshmen are not pets.
I guess the latest "in" thing is a freshman tote, like the ones you put a little dog in. It seems to me that many upperclassmen decide it is their sworn duty to guide these naive little children into the brave new world that is college. Heaven forbid that they have some time on their own to set themselves up comfortably and get into things at their own pace.
Essentially what I'm getting at is that so many times it seems like freshmen are treated like they are incredibly young. The way I hear some people talk about the freshmen is almost patronizing. Is it impossible for a freshman to find their own class? Or pick their own table at the DC? They're not as needy and dependent as some try and make them out to be. When I was a freshman, I wasn't allowed to sit by myself in at a meal. Someone would always come over to sit by me and talk at me. I believe there are days when we all want a quiet (as quiet as a cafeteria can be anyway) meal alone with our thoughts. Solitude is not a bad thing.
What amazes me about this mindset is that most of the freshmen aren't that young. We'll say that eighteen is a base age for them. Many sophomores are only a year older, if that. Some freshmen are non-traditional, like my roommates, who are twenty-two and twenty-three. Yet still people insist on treating them like they can't handle their own affairs. They're as mature as we were our first year, give or take (I realize that isn't always a positive thing). We had a group prayer over our dorm's freshmen, and it made me rather cynical (more so anyway). I can't judge the intent or the affect of the prayers, that isn't fair but I will say that the words I heard were more along the lines of "Let these poor ignorant children get it" than the "Let these men and women establish themselves in our community."
I've thought a bit about how I interact with freshmen, and I'm pretty proud about it. I feel like I've treated them as I treat everyone else in my dorm, regardless of age. In college, age matters much less than it did in high school. I can be just as solid friends with the senior who is twenty as I am with the freshman that is twenty-two. Age and grade don't amount to much, it's who they are as people that we need to pay more attention to. Being real, and treating them like equals is the best way, I believe, to help anyone adjust to a new situation in life.
It is, however, always Joe's fault.
Just something to chew on.
I have to admit, I haven't seen this that much this year--although I've been busy, and most of the freshmen I know are pretty capable people. I do remember it a little bit from my own experience, though, and sometimes it was frustrating.
ReplyDeleteAt any rate, you make a good point, and I think this is relevant on a lot of different levels on campus. It's not just an issue of year, but of major, dorm, etc. It's pretty easy to make nice little categories for people, whether it's labeling freshmen as naive or honors as stuck up or calling any group of students weird or obnoxious just because of the dorm they live in.
It's not so easy to make people actually fit the boxes we make for them--it's kind of insulting, really. People are more than strings of adjectives or labels.
Should we pray for the freshmen? Should we offer them help? I think so, not because they're freshmen, but because (hopefully) we would be that supportive of any of our friends, regardless of year. And if they want to eat by themselves or would appreciate it if we wouldn't keep telling them the "right" way to do things, we should listen to them.
As far as everyone else, we would probably do well to get to know the different individuals on campus as just that--individuals with their own ideas and personalities--because that, in fact, is what they are.