Several weeks ago, a sophomore, clearly very in touch with herself, told me, “Nobody knows who they are freshman year, unless they’re just a really cool freshman.” She said that she had had no idea. The idea that I was not alone in the struggle to find my place in a new community was comforting, but it also left me wondering, “So that’s it?” I realized that I had no choice but to actively find my place at this school; it wasn’t going to find itself.
Finding one’s place in the social scene at Northwestern is like showing up 30 minutes late to see Radiohead and attempting to shove your way towards the front of the stage. It’s hard, but not impossible. Both tasks compel you to make your way through a network of sorts and to accept that you will be judged.
Judgment isn’t some flaw found at Northwestern. In fact, it’s part of the human condition and the means people use to digest the world around them. In his compilation, What the Dog Saw, Malcolm Gladwell explains that people are surrounded by too many things to possibly be interested in everything. He argues that our instinct is to assume most things aren’t interesting. Gladwell writes, “We filter and rank and judge. We have to. There’s just so much out there.”
In the same way that people judge information to find interests relevant to them, people judge other people to seek those who may have something in common with themselves. This is especially true at college, where you’re surrounded by thousands of new people, all the same age, at the same school, with similar academic ambitions as you. At Northwestern, this phenomenon of judgment is particularly intimidating because it seems to be based on what you do, rather than on who you are personality-wise. Judgments are passed something like this:
What sorority are you in? Oh, that means A, B and C about you.
OR
Oh, you’re unaffiliated? That means X, Y and Z.
Are you in any clubs? Oh, you’re in ____? That means you must do a lot of Q, R and S.
What’s your major? Oh, you must have to deal with a lot of L, M and N and sometimes you probably act really E, F and G.
Your personal alphabet is comprised of preconceived notions and generalizations. This is fine. This is simply the way that people try to find commonalities with you so that they can find something to talk about and maybe even become your friend. No one’s out to get you.
After talking with friends after a mini identity crisis, I came up with a game plan in order to deal with this. Two ways: 1) Try not to care. 2) Be yourself.
1) Try not to care. My friends know me as someone who tends to worry about everything. Two nights ago, I was worried. I was worried about the judgments people would make about me based on what sorority I got into. I was worried that the reason people thought I’d be in Sorority X instead of Sorority Y, which they thought my best friend would be in, was because I wasn’t as cool as she was. I was worried that we’d stop being close once we were sorted into different sororities and that the sororities would take over our lives. I hated the idea that who I was would be determined by association rather than by my personality and interests, and I didn’t understand why someone so close to me, who joked with me about being the exact same person, could be seen so differently. Looking for an explanation, we ran back to our older friends’ house and then, finding them unavailable for questioning, turned to our other best friend. Our friend couldn’t fathom how we thought we were the same person and reiterated that we were completely different. He then told us that just because we were different in some ways, didn’t mean that we were any less similar in other ways. That’s when I realized that fitting in with a certain sorority doesn’t have to define you: it speaks to just a part of you. Then, I stopped worrying.
I stopped worrying because there’s no point in worrying about judgments or stressing about networking. Every student at Northwestern has a place here, which you can find by seeking out activities that are important to you. This leads me to my next point.
2) Be yourself. Be yourself. Be yourself. You ARE good enough, smart enough, cool enough. The same night as my mini identity crisis, I decided to try to quiet my thoughts by writing them down in an old journal. In the same journal, I found and laughed at poems that I had written when I was little about silly things like middle school boyfriends and the sun. Then I found a poem that I wrote when my grandfather passed away, remembered how much he means to me and cried. I also found pictures of more recent, more serious relationships and reminisced. In that journal, I found myself again; I grounded myself.
Remember the things that are important to you and embrace them. Chances are, some of the same things may be important to someone else. When you remember who you are and join activities, sororities and groups because you’re genuinely interested in them and not their social ramifications, you find people who you can relate to and who like you for who you are. These people become your network, your support and sometimes your lifelong friends.
The hardest part of getting to the front of the stage at a concert is physically shoving yourself between die-hard fans, while simultaneously apologizing. The hardest part of finding your niche at Northwestern is not caring and remembering to be yourself. But really, once you wrap your mind around it, the latter two tasks are much easier than the first.