Orienting oneself

Dear past and future first-years,

I am in the orientation program of my study abroad program at the moment. I was incredibly nervous for this portion of the next five months, because during my first year, I hated orientation (and by “orientation,” I mean “the first part of school wherein I did not feel like I had any business being at Columbia—beginning with orientation week and continuing through the first semester”). I am not the only one who has felt this way. I did not know that at the time, but I should have. And if you’re reading this and it’s applicable to your experience, you should have known it too.

I had wanted to go to Columbia for years and years prior to actually entering the gates as a prefrosh. I wanted it to be everything I had always wanted it to be. I wanted to meet people who were interesting and exciting and fantastic friends. I wanted to be challenged academically. I wanted to feel like I was a part of Columbia and that Columbia was a part of me. And I did all of those things. But, none of them were accomplished during orientation.

Part of the problem, I think, is that I put so much pressure on the immediate beginning, and, consequently, on myself. But a larger part is that I earnestly and honestly believed that I was the only person on campus who was having a difficult time. But I wasn’t. I thought everyone loved orientation and freshman year from the start, but it wasn’t until over the course of the next two years that I learned that others had felt the same way. And even now, I cannot help but think that it would have been so much easier if we had all been honest with each other. Not to have cried into each other's arms upon first meeting, of course, but to have somehow communicated that we were not all, in fact, having the best time of our lives—or, at least, to have somehow known it. I still wish I had known that. More importantly, I still wish that others had known that too.

I was originally going to write this column about how allowing oneself to not love orientation makes orientation itself easier. But it doesn’t. It’s hard to make complete sense of meeting new people and living in a new place that you’ve spent years wanting to be a part of and desperately hoping for. This is not a problem for everyone, but for some (or at least for me), it is. And that is fine.

Maybe you’re studying abroad and feeling lost overseas (or at sea, if you’re on that program that’s on a boat—but that is beyond the scope of this column). Maybe you’re a first-year and feel like your entire beginning was a hellacious continuation of orientation. Maybe you’re a sophomore, a junior, or a senior, and remember what this feels like, too. Regardless, if this does apply to you, try to remind yourself from time to time that you are not the only person in the history of College Walk (or St. Petersburg, or Budapest, or that program on a boat, or wherever you are) to have ever gone through what you’re going through. The only advice I can give (which, shockingly, does not include instructions on writing self-reflective columns in your hotel room when you should be packing to move in with your host family, but do as I say, not as I do) is: Have patience with the place that you’re in.

More importantly, have patience with yourself.

From Russia with love

Emily

Emily Tamkin is a Columbia College junior majoring in Russian literature and cultures. She is studying abroad in St. Petersburg this semester. She is a former Spectator editorial page editor. Foreign Correspondence runs alternate Tuesdays.