Truth about college

Coming into college, I had a lot stereotypes.

The first thing I was worried about was my roommate; since I got into the Honors program and was in the Honors dorm, I envisioned a nerdy-ass kid with no social life, a recluse who just chilled in the room all the time and wanted it quiet...or worse: he had a social life, but was obsessed with some crazy shit like that Magic card game or the thing where he dressed up and played with foam swords. I was afraid he wouldn’t want any people in our room, or he might smell really bad, and leave huge messes all over and use all my stuff and eat my food.

Since I live with the Honors kids, I thought it would be quiet every night, since kids would be studying. They wouldn't go out or play sports at all. I also envisioned that all the frat guys would be a bunch of douchebags who thought they were too “cool” for everyone else, and would just talk trash about everyone not in their circle of friends... the same goes for the sororities; I figured they would be stuck up and too busy being gorgeous to hang with non-frat guys.

I thought the parties would consist of a bunch of guys with a couple of girls here and there, kids doing keg stands all the time, people throwing up, and kids doing hardcore drugs...just overall a disaster. I was also extremely concerned about classes. I worried that my classes would be full of a shitload of kids in a huge lecture hall, where the professor didn't even know my name and gave out incredible amounts of homework.

Well, I was completely wrong about all my stereotypes...which really shouldn’t come as a surprise to me or anyone else.

As for my roommate, I had added him on Facebook to see what he was like and at first, I was like "There is no way me and this kid will get along at all." I was wrong! He is not the nerd I expected; he enjoys playing sports, has people to hang out with, and doesn’t care who I bring over to hang out or what time I get in at night. He's actually pretty awesome.

The other Honors kids aren’t what I expected at all, either. For the most part, they go out and party and if they don’t, they're up till at least two in the morning, hanging out in the hallways or in peoples' rooms. Some of the kids even love soccer as much as I do, and we either play in the hallway or go outside and play pickup games...so they're not all anti-sports people like I expected them to be.

Now the thing I was most concerned about (and what I thought I would be the most strongly against) was going to and hanging with the Greek kids at their parties. Last week, I went to a couple of parties and was extremely surprised by what I saw when I walked in.

Firstly, I didn’t expect them to be very responsible as far as rides go, but they actually pick you up at your dorm and drive you home at the end of the night. When I first walked in, I expected to be excluded and get the cold shoulder, but the exact opposite happened; people immediately greeted me and started talking to me and got me something to drink.

I also expected these kids to not be very intelligent, and not be able to carry a conversation, but again I was proven wrong; I found someone to talk to each
night. They also don’t make you do anything you don’t want to do, which came as a huge surprise to me. Also, they weren’t as careless and irresponsible as I expected them to be. They didn’t let things get outta control to the point of complete stupidity. Even when the cops showed up one night, they stayed calm and cool, and nothing bad ended up happening.

As far as sororities go I expected them to fulfill the typical stereotype of being amazingly good-looking, but only having half a brain and being total bitches to anyone not in their “circle of friends.” Yet again I was proven wrong...sort of. The girls WERE amazingly good-looking, so that part was true, but having only half a brain wasn’t true, seeing as a couple of the smartest girls I have met so far are in sororities. They didn’t ignore people either. They were really easy to talk to and were quite friendly.

So overall my impression of the Greek kids was 99% wrong. They are cool people who aren’t the complete losers the media has made them out to be.

Also, though classes were a scary thing to me (I imagined huge classrooms with at least 100 kids and professors who were pretentious old pricks, who were unrealistic about the amount of work they were giving out and didn’t know any students names), I now see that I was, again, wrong. Luckily for me, all of my classes are fairly small and the teachers, so far, are nice and have given out a reasonable amount of work.

So my stereotypes about college were almost unquestionably wrong. I see it as something you have to come and experience all on your own without the influence of others, before you jump to conclusions and make judgments. You will most likely be surprised by the people you meet and by everything else about college that has been falsely portrayed and told by people!