I have sat down to write this column several times, but I can't decide if I should start with "I'm really glad I'm not a '00" or "I really wish I was a '00."
I remember vividly the first time I actually considered how cool it was to be a 'shmen. An upperclass friend had sneaked me into a fraternity early in my freshman fall. Although we both insisted that I was a '96, it did not take the '94 brothers still remaining in the basement at 5:00 a.m. long to discover that I was indeed a '97. I expected teasing and ridicule, and to be booted out the door. Instead, I was greeted with nostalgia. "Man," they all said, "I wish I was still a 'shmen." I asked them why they would want to be a 'shmen -- as far as I was concerned we were not allowed at Greek parties, were stalked by Safety and Security, ripped off everyday by the notorious freshman meal plan and had way too much work and studying to do. Everyone around us seemed older, more mature and not quite as clueless as I felt in this new world called Dartmouth. Their reply was one that I have heard repeated many times since that night.
"Nothing will ever be the same as freshman year."
Although my sophomore year was pretty cool too, I have to agree that there is something incredibly precious about being a 'shmen at Dartmouth. One great thing about freshman year is that it truly is a year of infinite possibility. You haven't picked your major yet. You still think that you can be pre-med. You can still graduate Phi Beta Kappa. Even if you get truly awful grades, you still have eleven terms to pull up that GPA and get admitted to Harvard Law School.
Perhaps the best thing about being a 'shmen is that everything is new. Freshman year is a time to feel young, to play in the leaves and to wear your class jersey to football games. It is a time to bond with your hallmates in a crowded one-room double, drinking warm "beast" before the term comes when you move on to crowded fraternity basements where you can drink warm "beast." Freshman year is a time to glory in being naive and optimistic. Dartmouth will never be as fresh and clean, the bonfire will never be as tall, the winter as cold or the spring as welcome as it is your freshman year.
Which is not to say that I have decided that I would definitely go back to being a 'shmen if I could. There are definite advantages to being an upperclassmen, as I discovered one Wednesday afternoon last fall while eating my third lunch of the day at the Hop. The friend I was sitting with introduced me to a '99, who I, in my infinite coolness, completely blew off. I did not mean to be rude, but once I start a conversation, Daniel Webster could come up to talk to me and I would just keep talking.
Eventually this '99 worked up the courage to approach our table again, and pointed out just how intimidating it can be trying to meet upperclass women. This brought home to me everything that was not cool about being a freshman. Fun as it was to meet new people, it was also a terrifying experience. So many choices to make, and the traditional sources of advice, parents and close friends, were no longer an option.
I was even more struck by how difficult it was to be a 'shmen when this '99 admitted to my friend and me that she had been asked to be a hostess at a fraternity's rush parties. Although neither of us wanted to dampen her enthusiasm for Dartmouth, we both agreed that hostessing was just not something that she should do. I firmly support the Greek system, but anything that brings young, impressionable women into a fraternity simply for good conversation and their aesthetic presence can not be a positive thing. Rush should be an opportunity for house members to meet prospective pledges -- there should not be a need for cute freshmen to convince someone to join a house.
What this conversation made me realize most is that great as it was to be a freshman, I would never want to be back where this young woman is. The choices my classmates and I made as freshmen were blind ones. We did not realize that the decisions we made would be with us forever, that some stories never die and that innocent fun could have permanent repercussions. Relationships had not been destroyed by drinking, our friends had not been suspended for academics and disciplinary infractions and we had not begun to see Dartmouth through the wiser and more cynical eyes of an upperclassman.
So to all of you freshmen out there who wear your Dartmouth sweatshirts everyday (as I did) and loyally read The Dartmouth to learn everything that is happening at our beloved college, I have only these words of advice: Appreciate now but tread wisely, because nothing will ever be the same as your freshman year.
Reprinted from The Dartmouth, Monday, October 2, 1995.
