A question for first-years here at UF: How are you holding up?
It seems like a relevant question to ask during week five of the semester. If this is your first year, you've probably gotten a decent feel for the school and its people and culture by now.
Plus, the first "actual" football game of the season was this past weekend, and the first cluster of exams is probably popping up either this week or next.
Maybe most importantly, this is about the time when the excited high of living away from home and being at a new school begins to fade a bit, and people start asking themselves if this is the place they want to be. And it's tough - possibly tougher at UF than at most other schools - if the answer is anything other than yes.
Consider this: It's not a secret that UF has no shortage of school spirit. We proudly don Gators apparel and cheerfully end e-mails, voice mail greetings and occasionally conversations with "Go Gators," and it's not just because our football team kicks ass. (They do, though.)
It's also out of necessity; ours is a school of about 50,000 students, and the culture of Gatordom affords us all common ground when, given UF's size, common ground would otherwise be hard to come by.
It's a bonding experience that's intensely effective, and it's the reason why UF alumni who don't know each other can have random conversations but graduates from, say, the University of Phoenix usually can't. But if it doesn't take for whatever reason - you have no previous connection at all to UF, for instance, or if school spirit isn't really your thing - it can be intensely alienating.
If you're already inclined to feel that way, the problem is only exacerbated because you're very much supposed to like UF. When you're a freshman, there is indeed a correct answer when people ask how college is going - usually, "Yeah, UF's awesome, love it" or some variation thereof - so that you don't look too negative or out of place. And it doesn't help that very well-meaning freshman advisers and Preview leaders sometimes treat having reservations and insecurities about UF not as a completely natural feeling but as a disease that needs to be cured ("Get involved! Make the campus smaller! Meet people in the laundry room!").
Don't get me wrong. There are so many reasons why it is, in fact, great to be a Florida Gator, and you'd be completely justified if you've fallen in love with UF and the people in it. But if you haven't, that's OK, too.
With all the talk of how college is supposed to be the best years of your life, it's very easy to feel pressure to make your college experience amazing and even easier to get disappointed when your attempts fall short. You might have gotten saddled with a bad stack of classes, you're not clicking with the people you meet, or you just really miss your friends back home.
And if it's any comfort, whatever your insecurities, there are probably a dozen other people on your dorm floor alone who are, to some degree, feeling the same way - even if they say "Yeah, UF's awesome, love it" when you ask them how things are going.
Remember, as exciting and exhilarating as college can be, it can also be boring, frustrating and lonely, and that's true for everyone. Feel free to factor that in when deciding how you're holding up.
Joe Dellosa is an advertising senior. His column appears on Tuesdays.
