Reinvent Yourself: A Freshman Experience

Published October 1, 2007

By Lea McLellan

I saw a boy from my high school the other day, and he had a beard. Not a real, bushy, lumberjack beard, but one of those wiry patches of hair on his chin. Even so, I was shocked. As far as I could tell in high school, there wasn’t even any evidence that he had the ability to grow facial hair.

But there he was, walking to class with a tiny little beard like it was the most normal thing in the world. I wondered if this had been his plan all along. Maybe he knew coming in one morning with facial hair would send shock waves down the halls of my small, gossipy high school. So he planned and waited, knowing when he made the four-hour trip from Connecticut to Vermont, he could let his chin hair grow free.

Life offers few opportunities to completely start over. Going away to college is one of the rare chances a person gets to reinvent him or herself.
The socially awkward have a small window of time to prove to their new classmates how cool they are. The boy who has never drunk more than that sip of wine at his cousin’s wedding can brag to his roomie about all the “crazy fuckin’ parties” he went to this summer. Cassie can be Cassandra and Jason can be Jay. Heck, Beth can be Delilah if she really commits to the name change.

You can tell your new friend from calc that you can’t get enough hang-gliding back home. Have you ever hang-glided in your life? Who cares!

Well, okay. Lying is bad. And it can be very obvious and annoying when people try too hard to be something they aren’t. Still, there’s no shame in taking advantage of a fresh start. Later that day, I talked to a friend from home who goes to UConn. “It’s crazy!” Tamara said, “I’ve been meeting so many guys here.” She had been on three dates with three different guys within the first two weeks of college. On one of her dates, she had sung karaoke with a hot boy from her English class.

Hot boys? Karaoke! I suddenly had this vision of my sweet, shy friend onstage, flinging off her glasses she’s worn since she was three, and shaking her hips to Shania Twain. In my daydream, she was singing, “I feel like a woman” and flipping her hair in the direction of her drooling male audience.

This freaked me out more than the beard. Tamara had never been on a date. There wasn’t any good reason why guys didn’t ask her out. She wasn’t weird or unfortunate looking. Actually she’s very pretty and fun. She just never dated anyone when she was thirteen and was consequently labeled un-dateable for the rest of her high school existence.

In college, no one knows anything about you. This newfound anonymity can be utilized to finally show people the “real you,” even if you’re still in the process of deciding who that is exactly. People can leave their old looks, habits, and personalities behind. Kind of creepy.

But for a lot of people, kind of wonderful. It is possible that the hippest, most stylish girl in your dorm was a huge geek in high school. The one who the teachers always asked to fix the computer when their power points weren’t working or the one who’s mom dressed them in Osh Kosh B’gosh far past the point when it stopped being socially acceptable.

Maybe your nice, shy roommate went through a brief promiscuous phase when she was fifteen, so from then on she was the school slut. At first, it’s a little strange to think that people could be acting, dressing, and talking differently than they did three months ago. But change is good, right?

I’m not saying that everyone should revamp their lives, start wearing tie-dye t-shirts, and shower less just because they’re at UVM and it seems like that’s the “in” thing to do. But if you were unhappy with your previous image, reputation, or even hairstyle, now’s the time to break free and do whatever.

So date more, study more, party more, dye your hair purple more- go nuts. Maybe you just want to be less bitchy or more outgoing. No one here knows about how you had a pathetic crush on the same girl all through high school who wanted nothing to do with you… so hey, don’t tell them.

And next time you notice that the “alternative girl” with the dreads and piercings looks considerably more mainstream in old Facebook photos, I say cut her some slack.

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