A personal vow to rediscover my lost freshmanity

I’d like to believe I was never one of those bright-eyed, bewildered freshmen I’m so amused… I’d like to believe I was never one of those bright-eyed, bewildered freshmen I’m so amused by at the beginning of every school year. Ask me and I’ll swear that because my boyfriend was a Pitt sophomore, I’d been spared exhibiting true freshmanity.

I may never have wandered into Benedum Hall looking for Engineering Hall, nor did I ever confuse Fifth and Forbes avenues, but I was certainly among the most obvious of freshman. I was the eager beaver, annoyingly earnest type. The type who sat in the front row and rarely missed a class. I was all too willing to answer questions at 9 a.m. on Friday morning. I was the sort who not only did the assigned readings, but the recommended ones as well.

I must have stuck out like a sore thumb. I might as well have written “earnest freshman” across my forehead.

And what I wouldn’t do to get my work ethic back now.

After I realized what a supergeek I was – I mean, I was homeroom mother of my floor in Holland Hall – I worked as hard as I could at shedding the image. I did as little as possible my second semester. I took easy classes and stopped doing any reading I didn’t feel was imperative to a decent grade. I started cutting classes.

Little did I realize what a hard habit that would be to kick.

As much as upperclassmen are amused by lost freshmen and annoyed by eager ones in early morning classes, I’d take back my freshmanity if I could. Well, I’d at least take back the work ethic that came with it.

My senior year has come with a bit of irony. I’m realizing that it’s not the “stupid” or “lost” freshmen that do stupid things. It’s the all-too-comfortable seniors who find themselves in positions they can’t imagine how they got into.

Incoming freshmen always seem a bit taken aback by public transportation. I’m always annoyed by those gutsy enough to bother the bus driver with questions. “Does this bus go to Shadyside?” (Duh, that’s what it says on the sign, doesn’t it?) “Where do we get off?” (Get a bus schedule, stupid!)

All of my angst came flying back in my face a several weeks ago. Attempting to catch the 59U to the Waterfront for the opening day of a movie, my roommate and I didn’t bother to notice it wasn’t the right bus. As the bus wove around Greenfield, going through neighborhoods I’d never seen before, I wondered where the heck we were going. But, we were too cool and too stupid ask. As the bus was heading up Lebanon Road to the garage, the driver asked us where we were going. To our chagrin, we found ourselves stranded at a Dairy Queen on the side of the heavily-trafficked road in the pouring rain.

I would never have done such a thing as a freshman. Nope. It’s two careless seniors who end up on the side of the road with about $5 between them.

So, I’d like to take my freshmanity back. I wish I were half as careful or hardworking as I was then.

I was almost never late for, let alone missed, a class. I would drag my sleep deprived, half-dead self to Friday morning recitations I clearly didn’t need. While I was in said recitation, I would sit in the front of the room and answer all the questions while my classmates, half asleep and hungover, dreamed about ways to make my body disappear without a trace.

This year, instead of opting to go to biology, a class I despise, I reasoned that I could teach myself the material the night before the exams. Right. I was sick for the first month of classes and then figured attendance really didn’t matter at that point. Shockingly, I’m earning a stellar D plus, not even close to the C that I need to earn the satisfactory required to receive credit for the class.

I could go on and on about bad decisions I’ve made in the last couple of weeks that I never would have made as a first semester freshman. I never would have carried a credit card balance. I never would have gone out most nights, let alone every night, of the week to drink. I never started studying with only four hours before the exam. I never prayerfully e-mailed the TA at 11 p.m. the night before an exam asking for last-minute help. I never asked for extensions, let alone multiple extensions, because I never needed them.

You might say I have a case of senioritis. And I probably do. But until I get accepted to law school next semester, I don’t have much choice.

Until then, I think I’ll reclaim my freshmanity.

Megan Smith is a columnist for The Pitt News. She looks forward to your feedback at megansmith@pittnews.com. She would like to thank “J. Liz” Strohm for coining the term freshmanity.