Our Fresh Frosh columnists will be spending the year documenting their transition from high school to Northwestern life. Check out all four of our writers — and read their stories.
College is supposed to be different, right? Freshman year is the first time where you choose every class you take, not just a couple of electives here and there. But it doesn’t stop with your course load; choice pervades the entire experience, from your social life, to extracurricular activities. Hell, even whether you’ll be attending your classes at all is ultimately a choice.
So what are we supposed to do? To put it simply, it seems the best plan of attack is to do whatever, to do it well, and to take this college thing seriously while regarding yourself as an absolute clown.
This spring break, two of my closest friends and I drove to Ultra Music Festival (UMF) in Miami, Florida, for a couple days of excess. What started out as the coolest thing we thought we could possibly be doing with our break ended up being a true adventure. According to a club owner we befriended that weekend, anything goes during UMF in Miami, a maxim we appropriated for our own uses. In reality, a bunch of 18-year-old kids roaming the streets of what could be the most dangerous and sexiest city in the United States tend to stick out like a sore thumb.
So it was all we could do to at least pretend to be older and cooler while we fielded jeers from bouncers and festival-goers alike. Conversely, it worked at times, landing us on the receiving end of compliments from bona fide high rollers and acclaimed DJs. We found ourselves turning to each other throughout our time there exclaiming, “Man, it’s like the Wild West down here . . .” And that’s exactly what it was to us, an exotic playground of lawlessness and superficial values where the drinking age seemed be somewhere above 15 and there was nary a police cruiser in sight.
On the first day, after having driven all night and crashed for several hours in the hotel room, we headed out for a bite to eat. After eating what was literally the saddest excuse for sushi I have ever encountered, we made our way back to the hotel in gorgeous, tropical sunlight. We entered the bamboo-sided elevator where we were joined by two of the goofiest fellows I have ever laid eyes upon. They were both wearing cheap, plastic two-tone glasses without lenses, one with bushiest mop of curly hair this side of the Mississippi and the two of them wearing the height of obnoxious clothing. Needless to say, I immediately engaged them in conversation.
“So, you guys going to Ultra?” They turned and said, tinged with disdain, “Yeah, we’re playing.” The only response I could muster at that point was a stifled “Ah” of awkward understanding. After much avoided eye-contact, the pair exited the elevator before us without any further interaction.
We later discovered that it was LMFAO that we had been conversing with so casually in the elevator that afternoon. If you don’t know who LMFAO are, then God bless you. I personally have no respect for them as artists, but they are successful nonetheless and they got there by absolutely disregarding the traditional methods of succeeding in the music industry, much like Soulja Boy has done in the rap game.
I say all this to illustrate the fact that one can do whatever he/she wants in this world, because those boys were clowns, of that much I am sure. Just as electronic music violently rejects the rigid constraints of classical, and even most contemporary, music in favor of whichever computer noises make us dance, so should we approach the expanse of learning and opportunities that awaits us in mid-September. Instead of manufacturing some sort of traditional way to approach the great carnival of learning that is the American college experience, I think I’ll just do what feels good.
Above all I’m a music lover, so here are some tunes that colored my summer, all of which I’m sure you, too, will love. Trust me on this one.