The Social Aspect of My First Year.

All day today I’ve been reading other people posts about their first year of college, and I can say that my first year of college has been a stark comparison. The majority of these posts have raved and rhapsodized about meeting new people and gaining independence and finding yourself etc etc.

Before college, while I was still in Secondary school, Art and English had been my favourite subjects so naturally I excelled in them more than any of my other classes, because I genuinely liked going to them. I always thought that I would start an Art portfolio, but when it came to the deadlines, I had nothing to show for. Myself and my sister have always been creative. However, when she left school, she started a course in graphic design. I don’t think she’ll mind me saying that she dropped out but she did in any case because it just wasn’t for her. She’s always been better than me in that artistic sense and so I was kind of turned off the idea because I assumed it would also happen to me. Whenever I told anyone that I was really interested in doing something art-related after the leaving cert, it was always followed by them asking “what do you mean?” or “yeah but what’ll you do if you graduate?”. I dropped the idea anyway, and started thinking about what else I could do. I considered science after a while, but then I realised that the only reason I liked the subject was because me and my friends never had a class where we didn’t laugh. 

Coming up to the CAO, 9 out of 10 of my options were English-based. Fortunately for me I was offered a course in DCU called Media Studies and English. I accepted, happily. On my choices list, I believe I listed it second. I think, I can’t really remember. 

So, I knew no one going into my course. And that scared the crap out of me because I don’t really try new things unless I’m forced to. You might think yeah well me being entirely alone, with hundreds of other people who are feeling identical to me, might force me to try and make friendships or whatever. It didn’t, I preferred to take the seat that was next to nobody. I always had the campus map in my bag, so I never had to ask anybody for directions. I literally had never been put in a place so full of bustle yet have absolutely nobody to talk to. I remember I saw so many girls from my secondary school, and I was ignored straight away. So, naturally for me, I ignored them too after a while. Luckily for me, two of my closest friends had also gotten courses in DCU. I remember during freshers week, I was constantly texting our groupchat wondering where they were and if they had free time. The one time I think we managed to meet up, Mary-Jane had brought two stragglers that she had befriended and I of course had just brought myself.

This kind of gave me motivation. I started trying to put myself out there. On a tour of the second campus that I would be studying at, I luckily made friends with a girl called Ellie. A girl who I have not stopped talking to, for that I’m thrilled. She is studying Media Studies and Irish or Gaeilge or whatever it is. In first year, I had like 2 classes with her every week. You will not believe how much of leech I was, I messaged her before we were to go to lectures to see where she was. Through her, I now have a few people that I could have easy conversations with, If I see them, because she’s friends with literally EVERYONE.

Onto the second person. Sammy, Sam, if he reads this he definitely won’t tell me because he’s super modest about how super cool he is. Someone up above obviously saw how pathetic I was, and said you know what Sam won’t look good in a court dress and a grey wig, no way, let’s put him in Media Studies and English. We vaguely knew each other. And one day the creep came and sat beside me and totally blew my whole ‘unsuspecting genius loner’ charade. He’s the light of my life and if I didn’t have him, I’d probably drop out.

And that’s about it for my first year. I never went out on college nights out. It takes me about an hour and a half to get home from college, so it’s a miracle if I don’t fall asleep on the bus. I think I did 17 hours a week, but that feels like a lifetime when you add like 3 hours of travelling onto every one of your days. 

However, dismal the post seems to be. I’m actually surprisingly happy with how my first year of college has been. I just thought I’d share my experience because I haven’t come across one like mine YET. The reactions I’ve gotten from family members are still snide but I’m grand and I like what I’m doing. I do however, intend to do more during my second year. Patrick’s also forcing me to do so because he thinks my being a ‘recluse’ isn’t healthy, although I think he’s just getting tired of me plaguing him. 

Ciao Adios