Letter to University Freshmen

September is rearing its head around the corner again, and for those fresh-faced high school graduates, it means university is finally about to start. Now, depending upon your temperament it varies whether you're filled to the brim with unbridled anxiety or bursting at the seams with excitement. As a member of the prior sort, let me offer some of my wisdom as an inherently introverted senior.

Starting this four year journey all by yourself at a strange institute can be daunting to say the least. Unless you're one of the handful of lucky kids who get to start university with their best mates (in which case colour me green), the rest of us stumble through the first few weeks. Oh, we stumble a lot. A swarming sea of strangers coupled with the labyrinth of unknown territory, where finding classrooms take up so much time that the fear of walking in late to a room full of new people asphyxiates you. Good times.

The technical hurdles aside, to me, the hardest part was my feeble attempt at socializing. We've grown up watching movies that sell us unrealistic fantasies of University students lounging about on lush, grassy fields, chilling and having the time of their lives with virtual strangers underneath looming trees in the welcomed afternoon sun, and instant connections with people that fit in with you just right, eventually leading to bonds that last you your entire life. Well, abandon that desirable but delusory scenario.

Let me paint you a picture. The work load will be grueling and the cafeteria food will be less than pleasant, and I urge you to replace your idealistic expectations of leisure time around a scenic campus with the much more pragmatic version, which is squeezing into stairwells to rest between classes or to grab a snack while shouting at the top of your lungs in order to make conversation, as you're being cooked well and tender due the scathing heat of the sun. The sooner you get accustomed to the loud and fast paced life of university the better, because the hardest parts are yet to come.

It is of utmost importance that you choose a major you truly understand and resonate with. The amount of times I've seen brilliant people down and depressed because they can't immerse themselves into their courses due to lack of interest and comprehension is sadly astounding. Peruse, research, and fight for what you want to study for the next four years at all costs, because by the time you're well within your first year, it will be much harder to shift and adjust or convince unwilling parents. There is no use in coercing yourself into fitting a mold you were just not made for. Find your passion and utilise the time you get in university to fully submerge yourself within it, as it will only heighten your love and knowledge for the area of your interest. It's better to be well versed in something you genuinely care about, rather than cramming years worth of information into your head about a subject you have no attachment to.

And lastly, don't lose hope or ever wonder if there's something unfathomably wrong with you if you haven't found people that you can call your 'ride or die', right away. Grasp that a majority of the people you get to know in university will only be due to association through a class you shared, and will rarely develop into a long-lasting friendship. But that isn't to say that you won't find them, because believe me, a faceless, random person, you will. University allows you to meet a diverse group of people, each uniquely carved by their own story, and there will undoubtedly be kindred spirits amongst whom you will find your family away from family as they will fit your disposition like chipped Lego pieces. The amount of talented, funny, kind, quirky, riveting and deviously twisted people you'll come across in university will be an entire four year-long degree in itself.   There will be a point in this timeline when you'll be seated on the floor, clutching your sides, laughing at something ridiculously inappropriate your friend said that emulated a misinformed twelve year old, while leaning onto another for support, when you will come to discern that the magic actually resides in the chaos.