TEEN CENTER :: COLLEGE CENTER : FRESHMAN JOURNAL

FRESHMAN JOURNAL: OCTOBER 5, 2006
Am I Even in New Jersey Anymore?

Ashley C. Sawyer

It creeps up on you in the dining hall or in a lecture hall that contains what feels like 10,000 strange new people. It's that nauseating feeling that makes you realize you're not in Kansas anymore. As much as you may have tried to recreate it with pictures of family and friends, this place is not home and the people are not the same. It is in the lingo, the political views, the style of dress, the types of music, the morals and the everyday practices that I am beginning to realize are dramatically different from one place to the next.

My parents always told me to not say I didn't like anything until I've tried it, well I have and it still tastes a little funny to me. On paper, my university seemed like Heaven; to begin with, it wasn't my parent's house. Anyplace that allowed me the independence to choose what time I got home, who I went out with and what music I listened to sounded exciting. I've learned, what looks good on paper isn't always exactly what it seems, what am I supposed to do when no one agrees with me, and when we have different perspectives on everything?! To me, my peers view everything from a superficial, microscopic lens, and to them I take everything too seriously. Never did I imagine that there could be people so dramatically different from me. At home, I was normal, but here I am a, dare I say it….a bleeding heart Liberal. In Northern New Jersey, for example, we use the word "mad," not to mean angry or crazy, but to indicate quantity, yet when my friend from a different area heard me say "These rooms are mad small" it prompted a very different reaction than the one I am accustomed to receiving.

Most of the people from my high school, watched the same news shows as me, and for the most part, we carried a lot of the same perspectives. What I am beginning to see, is that each community is a culture in itself. The family and people who surrounded me as I was growing up are a reflection of the values that I carry with me today. I can imagine that anyone who grew up in a big city has difficulty adjusting to a college in a rural town, and vise versa. So how did they think that the university they selected would fit them? In my search for a chance to experience life in a place different from home, did I forget that I could perhaps be the only person, or one of a few people from similar backgrounds? Did I forget that this might create brand new challenges for me?

Before I start packing my bags and filling out transfer applications, I have to remind myself that a part of adulthood is learning to learn from those who are different. Surrounding myself with people who agree with my political views will teach me nothing. In order to learn it's important to hear the perspectives of people from a mixture of backgrounds. At the same time I can't help but wonder, why do they have to be so different?! When I talk to a lot of my peers about their various experiences, it becomes clear, that I am not the only one, who feels trapped into a place that was not meant for me.

A lot of discontent stems from attitude and perspective, while the rest can stem from poor judgment when it was time to select a college, but when I think about it, in order for a college to be a good fit for me, does that really mean that I should agree with the majority political perspective at that college? It would be foolish to disregard the things that I am enjoying such as professors who love what they do, decent class sizes and some of the other factors that made me apply to Rutgers. But just when I reassure myself that I can adapt to this new place, the girl down the hall from me makes, what to me is an ignorant comment, that I swear to myself no one from my hometown would have made. It is true, I did grow up in a bubble, what I had grown accustomed to over the years was probably dramatically different from what my peers were simultaneously growing accustomed to in their communities, we can not change that fact.

So the question is, as cliché as it may seem-it is one of the most fortunate things about attending a large, diverse university (even if it is a state school)-is it possible for us to co-exist with one another without biting each other's heads off? No, this isn't Kansas, and there really is no place like home, but maybe I can learn from the people of Oz.