Act flaky - it's part of the routine

As you step through the threshold of your dorm room, you may feel as though you finally have arrived. You may see coming to the University as an opportunity to set yourself free of parental encroachment, a means to find your true calling in life, or a place to find intellectual stimulation.

And you will probably be confused as hell about where you're going, what you're doing, and who you're becoming. Or you may think that you have it all figured out. Either way, the next four of years of your life could be the most exciting and frightening of your life. Or they could royally suck.

Jack Schillaci Slam It to the Left

Before I go on, let me clear some things up. In this column, I will not babble on about how much fun you'll have singing "The Victors" at Saturday football games, I will not try to tell you about the joys of drinking beer out of a keg of Ice House at your first four-way at Theta Delta Kappa Zeta Phi (or some other, equally unpronounceable name), I won't wax nostalgic about all the great fun to be had people watching on the Diag in the spring, and I won't make any vile misuses of the 'U' constructions.

The University is what you make of it. Some of your fellow freshmen (no, you're not "first-year students," you're freshmen, FRESHMEN!!!) will find themselves sick of this place after a semester or a year and bail at the speed of sound. Others will stick around for far too long, becoming voluntary or involuntary members of the classes of 2003 or 2004.

But no matter how long you are here, you will no doubt find yourself awash with opportunities to enjoy new experiences, meet new people, and all of those other things that will not doubt cut your future therapy bills. These opportunities will start the second you step foot on campus and continue until well after you stand in the pouring rain at Michigan Stadium in four years' time.

As the quote above indicates, your chance at grabbing these opportunities will be fleeting and come only once. College is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. For most students, it's the first time to set their own schedules, lead their own lives, and set out to figure out what is going on without someone else trying to stuff something down your throat.

Not that there won't be plenty of people trying to push their own agenda on you. MSA will preach the gospel of student government, BAMN will tell you to build a grassroots movement for some reason, the College Republicans will tell you about the insufferable climate for conservatives on this campus, etc... . Like spending a day at the Mall of America, everyone has something to sell you - twice in my first year here, guys in stuffy little suits came up to me to try and tell me about the Bible and how I could save myself. It's your job to sort through the mountain of crap that you'll be presented and find what is best for you.

The music, so to speak, is what you will find yourself living in for the next four years, as long as you make the effort to hear it. A few of things are common to everyone's experience in Ann Arbor: Arguing about "pop" versus "soda," fighting with your roommates about trivial things, fighting with them about not-so-trivial things, and discussing the merits of your dorm cafeteria's interpretation of chicken pot pie. But you will also experience things that no one else will. And this is what will make you become a different person, possibly even a better person.

After four years here, you will find that some of the things that once made sense aren't really logical anymore. Your parents, friends and family may find that you have become something they would never expect: An atheist, a Democrat, a smoker, or - God forbid - a lawyer. Let their ripples of shock slide off you - what they might view as a sudden change took time for you.

Do yourself a favor, don't pretend to know exactly what is going on all of the time. Everyone around you expects you to be flaky and ambivalent about where you're headed, what you're doing and where you've been. It's part of the process. You'll find the niches that fit you like a glove when you first got here will feel more like a straight jacket by the third month.

You'll find your roommates' annoying habits become as important to your day as they are to him or her.

And enjoy the music while you wait for the next song to start.

- Jack Schillaci is the Daily's editorial page editor. He can be reached over e-mail at jschilla@umich.edu.

09-08-98