Brown: Getting college right the 5th year around

College, you’re a masochist. Cruelly, you prod thousands of new students into your depths… College, you’re a masochist. Cruelly, you prod thousands of new students into your depths every year, comforting them, forcing them into kinship with one another.

Incidentally, we the students become pigeonholed into emotionally involved pseudo-families of our respective classes of insert graduation year here.

But then toward the end of the experience, college partners up with reality to punch you in the face. At least it did for me last year when I realized that most of my friends would graduate long before I would, abandoning me.

See, I’m a fifth-year student, more than ready to move on — mentally, but not quite as ready academically. For a while, I feared this new school year would be one of loneliness and boredom — never a good combination.

But thinking about it this summer changed my perspective. This isn’t some slow and painful ending — it’s a grown-up’s version of freshman year, anxious excitement and all.

Reconciling the two polar outlooks wasn’t easy for me, though. When the late-April pomp and circumstance cut ties between me and a bunch of people with whom I had spent about 20 percent of my life, Facebook only went so far to help me keep up with them.

According to CollegeResults.org, just less than 75 percent of Pitt students graduate in five years. But those numbers don’t include students who transferred, skewing the statistic of just how many people cycle through the school.

So how do you move on from old college friendships? You make new friends — that’s how.

Going to parties is one way to meet new people, but chances are you will look awkward among the underclassmen. If you can pull off the naive freshman vibe with just enough game, find some new friends or woo some freshman girls, more power to you.

But if your name isn’t Rico Suave, there are other ways to make new friends, such as reconnecting with old friends and networking through them. That too might initially be a bit awkward, but for the fifth-year student, it has a significant, positive side effect: relearning people skills.

After cliquing with people in clubs and organizations for a few years, I had some slight myopia when it came to calling different friends to hang out. With moving through the ranks over the years, my later years in some clubs felt like there was a generational disconnect between me and some of the newer members.

Maybe the lingering thought of knowing some of them were still in diapers when “Jurassic Park” came out exacerbates that rift. But hanging out with people my age has its advantages.

Making friends with freshmen and sophomores won’t kill me or any other soon-to-be-graduating senior. But it won’t help too many of us, either. See, that thing after college — you know, the real world — is approaching awfully quickly.

Because of that, a lot of us will have to reacquaint ourselves to working with older, wiser and often more talented people than ourselves. Hanging out with some young gun might reinvigorate that sense of youth in rebellion for a few more months, but that sort of social situation won’t help any fogey like me better adjust for professional life.

Over the summer, I’ve tried to meet older — and dare I say it — more mature people around here, as well as those of similar age. As much as I’m sure I will keep up with the fun stuff, I really don’t need to drink an abundance of crappy beer or go to similarly crappy parties every weekend anymore.

No, any well-primed upperclassman ought to forge his way out to places with equally career-minded individuals, undergraduate and graduate students alike. That might involve a few more trips to a coffee shop or to more upscale bars, but the tab should be worth it.

Being realistic, seniors and fifth-years, in just eight months, we’ll be packing our bags for the great unknown, too, just as our forbearers did.

Especially true for those of us who have already lost many of our friends to graduation, this last trip to Pitt’s all-you-can-eat educational buffet shouldn’t be used to collect more throwaway junk food, academically and socially speaking. That’s what the first four trips were for. This year should be for taking as many of the loss-leader items as you can stuff into your sandwich bag-lined pockets.

The fifth-year senior shouldn’t think of finishing his education apart from everyone else as a curse, like I once did. No, it’s a just an opportunity to do the college thing right the first time and leave with no regrets.

E-mail Jacob at jeb110@pitt.edu.