What's not to like about being a freshman? Classes are still relatively easy (I have forgotten everything from Writing the Essay), you establish your second base of friends and you get to have an extremely ecstatic relationship with New York City. Everything is interesting and new; trips to the MET, MoMA, the Village, SoHo and Brooklyn are in abundance. You just want to see everything, explore new places, go on long walks and get lost in this new place you can call home.
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Fast-forward a year. You're back in New York City after a seemingly endless summer break, ready to restart freshman year in a newer, bigger dorm with newer and bigger possibilities. But now you're a sophomore and you start to realize freshman year will never happen again. University Place is light years away; going to campus is an annoying day-trip in itself. The overwhelming coziness and comfort of literally being able to roll out of bed and into your 9:30 a.m. MAP course is replaced with an overwhelming feeling of isolation from your past. Sophomore year is this weird intermediate phase, a Purgatory between arriving in New York City and being fully attuned to its complexities. It is single-handedly the most overlooked year of the college experience and it's starting to get the best of me.
It all starts with the introductory classes to your major(s). You have all these plans and expectations etched in stone for your future, and then you start to question what the hell you're doing with your life. How can you choose a major with such short notice? The skepticism reaches a level of Dostoyevskian existentialism. How can I major in politics if I'm not that great at game theory? Do I still want to be a journalist? Will anyone even want to hear what I have to say? Gallatin? Maybe I should just transfer to Gallatin and all my questions will be answered. Yeah ... Gallatin.
If you lived in Weinstein freshman year, you always had something to do and somewhere to go, because the sheer thought of staying inside those cinder block prisons made your hair stand on end. Come sophomore year, the cinder blocks are gone and it's almost as if you forget how to go out. You always have this feeling on the weekends that you're missing something. This general atmosphere of loneliness is also supported by the lack of enthusiasm for 'community' in your second year.
Everyone has their own group of friends already, so no one is looking to meet new people and hang out on the floor anymore. Also, the upper-class residence halls transform the notion of meeting up with friends into a distance dilemma. In freshman year, the worst you had to deal with was a friend from Third North who fell out of the Weinstein-Hayden-Brittany area. In sophomore year, it's a mission to visit your friend at Broome or Greenwich Hotel if you're stuck up at Gramercy.
I'm not saying that sophomore year is terribly depressing and the worst time of our young lives. It's just ... different. That mysticism and amazing first impression of New York City evaporates quickly, and you're stuck in this state of confusion. As a freshman, you adjusted to the hustle and bustle of downtown Manhattan; now, as a sophomore, that period of your life is over. You can only ask, "What now?"
Sophomore year of college is an integral part of growing up. It can be hard to live through, but a time of perseverance and patience as well. The introductory classes might make you question your career options in life, but that doesn't mean all hope is lost for your future. The introductory classes are meant to weed kids out. It's the advanced classes that are more appealing. Once you admit to yourself that freshman year was a magical place like Neverland or Alaska, you can begin to re-enter your home away from home that serves Chick-fil-A for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
