TEEN CENTER :: COLLEGE CENTER

FRESHMAN JOURNAL: SEPTEMBER 1, 2004
A Restless Summer

By Abha Bhattarai

I've spent the last few weeks saying goodbye to my friends who've already left for college. By mid-September, I'll have joined them too, as a freshman at Northwestern University, but for now, I'm at home in Austin, Texas, shopping for down comforters and choosing my meal plan for the fall.

Northwestern, located near Chicago, operates on a quarter system, which means there's a quarter in the fall, two in the winter and spring and then one during the summer. It also means that my summer vacation runs from mid-June to mid-September, and that it's completely out of sync with my friends' more conventional schedules.

At first, I was excited that I would have three weeks to myself while everyone was busy settling in at school. But now that it's the beginning of September and everybody's gone, I'm ready to stop living vicariously through my friends. I'm ready to have my own stories about orientation and my new roommate and my experiences with dorm food that I can share with everybody else. What I thought would be a relaxing few weeks of leisurely shopping and packing has become a really anxious period where I shop just to kill the time.

FINDING A BALANCE

It's been a restless summer, where I've had to deal with the knowledge that I'm leaving my home after 18 years. There's an unspoken pressure to make the best of everything, whether it's hanging out with my friends, or spending time with my family, because it'll all be gone after a few weeks.

GETTING ACQUAINTED

With the aid of The Facebook, an online directory of college students, I've been able to spend lazy summer nights talking to other Northwestern students from my "friends" list. It's been nice to know a few names and faces (based only on pictures, of course), and to know that I'm not the only one wondering where to buy a good winter coat or how to order a laptop online.

Northwestern's local Alumni Association had a new student party earlier this week where I met people I'd talked to online throughout the summer. We knew exactly what movies everyone had seen in the last week, what high schools everyone had graduated from and what everybody's major was without ever having spoken to them. It was kind of strange, a little like online dating, but with the condition that I was already committed for the next four years.

I've never visited the Evanston campus where I'll be spending the next four years. The only snow I've seen is Austin's ice and slush, the kind that melts by the time it reaches the ground. I've spent the summer buying tank tops and skirts without thinking of what I'm going to do with my summer wardrobe once the subzero temperatures kick in. I'm still trying to decide which set of sheets would match my comforter the best.

Up until now, I've thought of college as a social setting, where I'll be making new friends and meeting new people. It hasn't quite occurred to me that I'll have classes to attend and exams to take. Although a part of me is looking forward to choosing my classes and scheduling club meetings, another part of is apprehensive about the challenge of college courses in a setting where everyone has been hand-picked. Freshman orientation is slated to begin in two weeks, and I've only begun thinking about which pairs of jeans to take and which to leave behind. But if nothing else, I'm looking forward to my first winter jacket, my own little refrigerator, and my first roommate.