2008 Woodie Awards
Our View: New school year brings changes, challenges for many
Issue date: 8/31/07 Section: Opinion
The start of the academic year, for better or worse, is always a time characterized by the numerous changes that occur both in the lives of students and in the community. It's a time when students are forced to trade in their carefree summer nights for 8 a.m. biology classes, when nearly everyone is trying to reorient themselves while the dog days of August slowly transform into the breezy afternoons of September.
This reorientation process, a struggle for nearly everyone coming off three months of relaxation and homework-free nights, seems to be even more of a challenge this year.
The parking spaces seem ever harder to come by, driving around campus and in town is more of a hassle, and waiting in lines that snake a little further each year out the doors of the dining halls isn't anyone's idea of an easy transition.
While the largest incoming class in the university's history, including more than 1,500 first-year students, may add to this problem, they're also the ones who face the most drastic change in lifestyle. For them, all is new: living with a new roommate or five, spending $75 for a used book and being responsible for planting the seeds of their professional lives. Gone are parents and caretakers to wake you up for school or make sure your homework is done.
Making new friends isn't as easy as it may sound, even when you've been dropped into a new atmosphere that features more than 8,000 people you've never met. Finding a balance between having a social life, keeping up on class work and staying in touch with relatives and past acquaintances are difficult for many.
Eating healthily, staying in shape and developing good time management skills are necessities that often get tossed aside when midterm exams approach and McDonald's is on the way to the party you're headed to on Friday night.
People tend to resist change for a variety of reasons, the top two of which may be a fear of the unknown and a desire to stick with what's comfortable. This may sound a bit off to those happy with the university's continued steps to provide a more technologically advanced college experience, but it also helps explain the struggles to adapt among those with the if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it mindset.
This reorientation process, a struggle for nearly everyone coming off three months of relaxation and homework-free nights, seems to be even more of a challenge this year.
The parking spaces seem ever harder to come by, driving around campus and in town is more of a hassle, and waiting in lines that snake a little further each year out the doors of the dining halls isn't anyone's idea of an easy transition.
While the largest incoming class in the university's history, including more than 1,500 first-year students, may add to this problem, they're also the ones who face the most drastic change in lifestyle. For them, all is new: living with a new roommate or five, spending $75 for a used book and being responsible for planting the seeds of their professional lives. Gone are parents and caretakers to wake you up for school or make sure your homework is done.
Making new friends isn't as easy as it may sound, even when you've been dropped into a new atmosphere that features more than 8,000 people you've never met. Finding a balance between having a social life, keeping up on class work and staying in touch with relatives and past acquaintances are difficult for many.
Eating healthily, staying in shape and developing good time management skills are necessities that often get tossed aside when midterm exams approach and McDonald's is on the way to the party you're headed to on Friday night.
People tend to resist change for a variety of reasons, the top two of which may be a fear of the unknown and a desire to stick with what's comfortable. This may sound a bit off to those happy with the university's continued steps to provide a more technologically advanced college experience, but it also helps explain the struggles to adapt among those with the if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it mindset.
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