Freshman Year – The Gamut

Life feels really full right now. I just finished my first year of college, and life honestly feels like a whirlwind every day. I attend Gordon College in Wenham, Mass.; new people, new classes, new sorrows and new opportunities grab at me all the time, but some days it takes everything in me just to get out of bed. 
College honestly feels like a fever-dream summer camp. I get to spend four years of my life with other (young and attractive) kids my age, all with the goal of bettering myself and investing in my own future. All I have to do is show up to the cafeteria to get a good meal, and most of my professors seem earnestly invested in helping me do my best.
I joined the school newspaper last fall, and I feel exponentially more competent as a writer because of it. Next year they’re going to let me be the editor-in-chief of the paper; we’ll see how that pans out. It seems that most of the ‘learning’ that happens in college is extracurricular.
I had to go before the (very intimidating) student government to plea for a bigger budget so we can change formats from a newspaper to a news and feature-oriented magazine. You would think I had hit one of their dogs, but with lots of pre-planning and practice we won (most) of them over. I had the chance to interview the New Testament scholar N.T. Wright, and I wouldn’t trade impulsive weekend trips to Rockport and Salem with my friends for anything. Life really is full.
You hear a lot about ‘self-discovery’ in college, and that sentiment is more than an empty platitude. I’ve gotten the chance to discuss and slog through many ideas and perspectives on life during my first year. Lots of existential teenage angst – it for sure is a real thing – but the joy of working through hard times and having friends to stand alongside me has been a great blessing.
I hear older people complain a lot that college kids are all a bunch of silly liberals who have some really stupid ideas. I guess I can’t argue with that so much. Stupid ideas abound in college, but I think it’s okay to put everything on the table as we figure out what this life is about and who we are to be in it.
I have a friend who is a bleeding-heart Christian communist, but he is very thoughtful and willing to listen to other points of view. I think he is moderately insane, but so many of my peers are doing the best that they know to do in pursuing what they see as God’s truth here on earth.
I challenge older people to think about when they were teenagers and young 20-somethings. Did you have it all figured out? If so, please call me. Life can be really hard for young people. There are huge expectations for us, and the world is a turbulent place. I have had to deal with the death of my father and the divorce of my stepdad and mother, and many others have it even harder. Just because those of us at college aren’t bleeding in the midst of poverty does not mean that the struggles of life are not present, real and very difficult. Have some sympathy on us. Many of us are doing the best we know to do, and really want to grow and learn from those around us. At the end of the day though, life is full and wonderful.