Hello freshmen! Welcome to Binghamton, your intellectual homeland for the next four years.
As beautiful as the weather is now, come September, pack a jacket. Your mothers will thank me later. The next time it’ll be this sunny will be in May, toward the tail end of your second semester. Even then, you will only catch a glimpse of sunlight, reflected off a computer screen in the Glenn G. Bartle Library. Alas, this is the nature of our unique Binghamton climate.
Over the course of Orientation, you will likely be the recipient of a seemingly endless barrage of messages targeted at you from all directions: “Join our club! Give your time to this cause! Major in art!”
As much as you may feel overloaded with information right now, the continuous appeal for your time and attention does not end with Orientation. Rather, throughout your — hopefully — glorious time at our wonderful institution, you will continue to be exposed to all sorts of ideas and agendas.
In this brief piece, I seek not so much to add my voice to the cacophonous symphony of (unwanted) advice, but rather to offer you a lens to analyze everything you take in.
If every club, team, cause and organization out there is competing for your attention, it is crucial that you filter and decipher what truly appeals to you and what is just background noise. Find your true calling, so to speak.
That’s part of what college is about. It’s about making your own decisions.
College is about turning words such as independence, responsibility and maturity from abstract terms used by high school guidance counselors, into real, tangible goals worth living by.
With that in mind, there is one specific, potentially detrimental ideology that pervades the college experience which I seek to address.
College is certainly about growing out of your comfort zone and trying new things. But do not pay the price of sacrificing your values and principles.
This is important. While new experiences undeniably expand your horizons, don’t leave behind the values you hold true. What are you going to do with the principles you were raised with? Will they evaporate into thin air when you wave as your parents drive away, a tear slowly going down your mother’s cheek?
For likely the first time in your life, you will answer to no one, save yourself. This is a mighty feeling.
Don’t get me wrong — explore, have fun. If in high school you loved chemistry, take a creative writing class. If you’re a history buff, try German. If you’re a poet, well, you should probably just stick with poetry. In short, expand your intellectual and personal horizons.
But don’t for one second think that your morals and values are like a high school dress code to look back upon with disdain.
In the laissez-faire college environment, you need to live by your own code. The freedom of a structure-free environment can be frightening and intimidating, yet liberating as well.
Take advantage of all that Binghamton has to offer. You’ll come away better and happier for it. Put yourself out there. Discover hidden interests and talents — you have them, I promise.
Raise your hand in class. Be confident. Get involved. Try out for a team on a whim. Audition for a play. Sign up for a cause you never heard of. Find a major. Drop a major. Fall in love with a class. Fall in love with a classmate.
You’re batting in the big leagues now, and the stakes are high.