Editor’s note: This is the latest in an occasional series, “If I Knew Then What I Know Now,” in which authors provide advice to college students on the basis of their own experiences.
If it is your intention to go to college for a four-year-long party filled with booze, drugs, raucous parties, and numerous anonymous sexual liaisons with all expenses paid by your parents and taxpayers, don’t bother reading this piece. If, on the other hand, you are planning on going to college as a means to self-improvement and a brighter future, my advice may prove useful.
I have found that one of the most important decisions to make in college, right up with choosing a major or the school you attend, is choosing the right group of friends. I have had experience with the wildest of partiers pursuing titillation and vice and with those earnestly striving to make the world a better place, and I have found that the difference between the two is as plain as night and day.
During my freshman year I was trying to figure out where to live and whom to live with. My good buddy suggested that I opt for the random roommate selection process so that I could “meet new people.” Additionally, he advised, I should live on South campus, where more underclassmen generally live, so that I could get the whole “college experience.”
I certainly got the college experience (or at least enough for my tastes, anyway). Over the course of the year, my suitemate puked on our floor, my roommate puked in my laundry, I was repeatedly “sexiled” from my room, and the guys in the room next to me kept singing “Don’t Stop Believing” and playing beer pong at all hours of the night even when I had to wake up early the next morning. My room smelled horrible, focusing on school was difficult, and most of the people I met had markedly different interests than I did.
I quickly realized that I wanted to roll with a different crowd, but it took a while to realize exactly what were the most desirable aspects in a group of friends. By senior year, I had it figured out fairly well. In stark contrast to my freshman year, I hung out with and lived with a great group of guys who were more involved with church and religious organizations and less interested in partying (although they could certainly hold their own in beer pong). It was a lot more fun, I felt a lot less uncomfortable, my living quarters smelled a thousand percent better, and, through that group of guys, I met a lot of outstanding people that I would not mind my parents meeting.
Which brings me to my next point, for aspiring college boys: pursue the right type of women. University United Methodist Church and Campus Crusade for Christ are much better places to meet girls than Alpha Tau Omega’s annual Dukes of Hazzard party or the East End bar. Waylon Jennings sang that “there ain’t no good in an evil-hearted woman,” and, although the point may be disputable on theological grounds, his warning is an important one. If you are interested in girls who are serious about finding a lasting relationship (and the wisdom of ages suggests that these are the best kind), I can say with near-metaphysical certitude that a higher proportion of them can be found at the 10:45 service at The Summit Church than karaoke night at Goodfellow’s. I have known too many guys who had their hearts broken and learned the hard way that pursuing “evil-hearted” women is a losing proposition. The same advice goes double for the ladies out there.
Furthermore, I would advise new college students to get involved with student organizations on campus. The admonition “get involved” may be a bit of a cliché, but playing an active role in student organizations is definitely worth your time and easier than you might think. For example, during my sophomore year at UNC, the College Republicans sent out a message to their email list asking for applications to be administrative vice chairman, the number three spot in the organization. As I was only a sophomore and had not attended many College Republicans events, I thought I did not have much of a shot at getting the job, but I applied anyway. Much to my surprise, I actually got it. That opened many doors, such as becoming president of the Tar Heel Rifle Pistol Club (a great addition to any resume) and writing for the Carolina Review, one of the most fun things in my entire college experience.
Finally, if you are serious about your education, it is important to understand that in today’s colleges you will have to take many useless classes in order to graduate. With careful planning and research, you can minimize some of the pointlessness, but usually you don’t have enough time to put into selecting classes, and not all the meaningful, useful, or interesting classes are available. Consequently, I had to take some classes of little utility or interest. Intro to Drama at 9:00am on Tuesday and Thursday, for example, taught directly from the PowerPoint slides, was hardly worth waking up for.
Similarly, Animal Behavior was a good time for an afternoon siesta. The easy material and needlessly tricky tests made paying attention a nearly fruitless endeavor, even though the class fulfilled an upper level biology requirement. Evolution of Vertebrates was moderately interesting and required serious mental effort, although the utility of knowing the difference between Saurischian and Ornithischian dinosaurs is questionable.
Indeed, in order to get the most out of college, to become a fully liberally educated individual, to develop right reason and awaken the moral imagination, and to attain what John Henry Newman called the “philosophical habit of mind,” it may be necessary to do some reading and reflecting outside of the classroom. My own understanding of the world has been derived, for the most part, not from the jumbled array of classes that just happened to fit into my schedule (I was a biology major) but rather from reading the works of writers of great learning and genius. If I had never stumbled upon the writings of Dinesh D’Souza, for instance, it might have been a long while before I had any inkling of the philosophical underpinnings of Western political thought. In order to understand more fully the human condition, to begin to grasp the noble and tragic aspects of man’s nature, it is at least as helpful to read Hawthorne, Dante, and Dumas as it is to read a psychology textbook (and certainly more helpful than sleeping through Animal Behavior). To be able to put the new things you are learning in the larger context of what T.S. Eliot called the “permanent things” is to understand the purpose of a liberal education. Genuine education is something greater than a tool of public policy and more than mere job training.
Demosthenes pleaded to the Athenians, “In God’s name, I beg you to think!” When you get to college, don’t forget to do the same.