Let a bitch live: The Freshmen Year

by Olivia McCormack

I want you to walk too slowly and have a man wearing a suit give you a dirty look and sigh in a way that only a white guy who’s never had loans can.

I want you to throw up your Subway, then go again the next day and get the same thing.

I want you to wear heels to a frat party and flirt with the guy giving out drinks.

I want you to cry on the metro while you’re going to an internship that is too overwhelming, and you just want to call your mom but there’s no service. 

I want you to think that you’re god’s gift to microeconomics, then take a higher level course and drop your Econ minor. 

You’re supposed to be a mess at 18. This is the first time most people are away from their home and family, figuring out what kind of person they want to be. You get to not know things and then act like you do. Go on and mention your summer internship every 5 seconds in class because that’ll probably count for participation right? Pretend like you’re too cool for Taylor Swift and that you actually like sports.

If a “Back to the Future” moment occurred on the WONK bus I would probably still tell myself to stop being a dipshit. But everyone deserves to have a time in their life when they’re completely lost in the world. Wonks (god I cant believe I used the word wonk twice in one article) like to act like they have it all together, but having it all together at 18 probably just means you’re not doing the right things. 

None of the comfortable norms and cliques that were there to coddle you in high school are present in your first semester at AU. Your mediocre tennis skills won’t be able to protect you from the world of not having friends. You get to mess up on your way to figuring how who you are on your own. 

So, in conclusion, let a bitch live. Let yourself do dumb (but please, please) safe things. Ignore the upperclassmen who forget what it’s like to be new and scared and clinging to any sort of belonging. Be a dumbass for the first, but not last, time in your life.