’18s, your mere existence makes me feel old. And with that feeling comes the compulsion to convey something that I, like any old person, will preface by saying that you will only really understand it when you, too, are old. It’s cyclic and ironic — and a little sad, to be honest — but bear with me.
Orientation is defined as “the determination of the relative position of something or someone (especially oneself).” Dartmouth arranges for you to go through this process exactly once before you embark on your freshman year. My advice to you is that once is not enough. I wish someone had told me early on that it is necessary to orient yourself again, repeatedly.
My high school English teacher made us write letters to ourselves on the last day of senior year, detailing what our hopes, dreams and fears were for college. She promised that she would mail them to us a year later so that we could reflect on our progress. The exercise was incredibly clichéd, and I never even opened mine — until a few months ago, when I found it during one of the frenzied unpack/repack sessions that follows an off-term.
Reading the letter three years later probably had a far more complicated impact than my teacher intended. Seeing what I wanted for myself in college at 17 inevitably made me compare it to what I have achieved at 21 — and the lists are different. It was hard not to read the discrepancies as bygones or failures. I never pushed myself to do an extracurricular far outside my comfort zone, I fell out of touch with many of my high school friends and my pet cat of 11 years died 10 months after the letter’s date. It wasn’t just an exercise in tracking progress — it was cold, hard proof of how much I have changed at Dartmouth, maybe even because of Dartmouth.
Excuse the outrageously extended nature of this metaphor, but reading that letter was one of many orientations I have had since freshman fall. It made me consider if I liked the ways I had changed, and if I didn’t, how I could fix them. In no way am I saying that it made me regret anything about the three incredible years I’ve had at the College so far. But the experience did make me think about my aims and purpose and “relative position” both on this campus and, since I’m apparently graduating in a year, in life.
Too philosophical for your first week of college? I get that, and I probably wouldn’t have bought into it during my post-Trips high either. I know what orientation is about, and I sincerely hope that you all embrace it. The feeling of newness is irreplaceable. The freedom that comes with walking around in shmobs of people you met 10 minutes ago determined to find your best friend cannot be replicated. The strong desire to actually start college-level classes won’t come back. Ride the high, because almost everyone I know would kill to be back in your place.
I speak from nothing more than experience, and I think the reason I believe constant orientation is so important is because I never really engaged in it during my first two years at Dartmouth. My freshman year, I was beyond caught up in how fun and collegiate everything felt. My sophomore year was about navigating a social scene that I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be a part of. I had minimal concept of an identity outside the context of campus, and while that was okay, I think it would have made things easier if I had taken the time to recalibrate once in awhile. That’s why opening the letter was so strange for me. The longer you put it off, the harder it is to remember who you were when you wrote it.
Terms abroad, falling outs with friends, exciting internship offers, summers off, bad breakups, family events, conversations with someone you miss, bad grades you know you deserved and good grades you know you deserved — all chances to reorient yourself. Don’t get so lost in self-reflection and feelings that you forget to live in the moment, and don’t focus so much on the future that your life becomes a series of countdowns. All I can say, Class of 2018, is I hope you decide to take opportunities for orientation when you need them.
Worst class ever, welcome home.
