First Week

One cold, foggy Wednesday morning in Huntington, I arrived on the campus of Marshall University. Right in front of the parking lot, I saw the new freshman dorms, two identical brick buildings separated by a sidewalk. It didn't hit me at the time that I was looking at my new home.

As I walked up to the front desk of the North building and acquired the keys to my new room, I began to understand the magnitude of what I was getting myself into. The thought of living in a little dorm room hours away from home was daunting. And then, once my parents left later that day, I really started getting that worried feeling in the pit of my stomach. However, as the week progressed, the loss of normality in my life was quickly replaced with exciting, new opportunities.

After a morning convocation that featured some encouraging words from Marshall University President Stephen Kopp and Marshall head football coach Doc Holliday, freshmen were taken around campus in tour groups based on their majors. Social barriers were broken in these groups.  

 I quickly learned that college life is extremely different than anything I have ever experienced. One of my classmates in my First Year Seminar class explained it very well when he said, "You have to be your own mom." Food doesn't sporadically appear in the fridge, and laundry doesn't eventually get clean if you throw it on the floor. You have to do everything for yourself. It is the student's responsibility to control his or her success or failure.

College is different from high school in so many ways. Many people dread college, but it does not have to be looked at as a bad thing. In exchange for doing your homework and "being your own mom", you get freedom. Freedom to have fun, or freedom to ruin yourself. Freedom to take charge of your class work, or freedom to fall behind. Every member of Marshall's class of 2014 gets the same amount of freedom.  How that freedom is handled will determine who succeeds and who does not. I plan on succeeding, and I hope that all of my new friends at Marshall do too.

Marcus Constantino at constantino2@marshall.edu.