What I learned in College: Freshman Year

So I just graduated college. It’s glamorous and all, but now I am just sitting at home with nothing to do, so what better than to reminisce over the past four years of my life? College was an incredible time that shaped who I am today. I can guarantee you that I am not the same person I was four years ago. So grab a seat and some hot cocoa, because I am going to spend the next four blogs posts remembering all the lessons that God hammered into my head. I hope you can learn from what I learned (and didn’t learn). With that mediocre introduction, let’s start off with freshman year.

What I learned in College: Freshman Year

High school is silly

In high school, I thought I knew everything. I felt like a big boy. I could drive. I could socialize. I knew right from wrong. But it wasn’t till I left the enigmatic culture that plagues the halls of my high school that I realized that life in high school isn’t everything. Quite frankly, high school was silly, and I was even sillier. In high school, I cared all about what other people thought of me. In high school, pretty girls held me in the palm of their hand; they were like goddesses demanding my attention. In high school, I had this pseudo-confidence that I knew who I was and where I was going. In high school, I judged people who weren’t like me. I scoffed at people who weren’t Christian. I pointed the finger at people who weren’t making good life choices while I snuck out at 3 AM to TeePee my Youth Minister’s house. It didn’t take long after I left that drama-plagued palace to realize how childish and immature I was. If you are a high schooler and you are reading this, just know that life outside of high school is so much greater than you can imagine. If you are past high school and you are reading this, perhaps you can relate, or perhaps you still miss high school. Regardless, all I know is that who I am hates who I’ve been.

Everyone is just as insecure as you are

So the typical freshman comes into college with eyes wide open and a giddy excitement (or fear) for the prospect of finally being on their own. Move in day comes around, you say “TTFN: Ta Ta For Now!” to your parents, and boom, you are a freshman in college. It’s time for K-Week and you skip that silly K-crew meeting to get some free food sponsored by Alpha Beta Kappa Kappa Deltacron. Everywhere you go, there are “kids” (dawning blue lanyards and confused faces) scurrying around in this new college atmosphere. If you look closely, you can see a senior rolling their eyes in the background. But now almost everyone around you is a new face—minus the high school friends you manage to cling to.

When I was a freshman, it felt like everyone around me knew what they were doing; they were walking tall. I did my best to play the confident college kid, but quite frankly, I had no idea what I was doing. No one did. And here lies the lesson: While it seems like everyone else has it all together, they don’t. They are just as insecure as you are. And once you figure this out, making friends becomes less of a performance. Life becomes less of a performance. No matter how confident someone looks, they are full of either false confidence or crippling insecurity. Once you learn that everyone is dealing with crap just like you, you can begin to love them as they are, and not who they are pretending to be. God’s children are the light of the world because they see people how God’s see people and they treat them as such.

Don’t isolate yourself

We’ve all seen it before: the invisible college student. There are some students who come to college but never branch out and talk to anyone. Many of them resort to driving home every weekend. Others stick with high school friends because they are comfortable. While some people get along just fine with these antics, one of the wisest things to do in college is to get outside of your comfort zone and surround yourself with people who aren’t carbon copies of you. We all get comfortable in our little bubbles, but as I learned later in college, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. If you are stuck in a pit of isolation or a stale friend group, you will not grow.

On a more spiritual side, isolation leads to a Christian’s downfall. If you study demonology and the antics of the enemy, you’ll discover that isolation is the first tool that keeps us from God. When we don’t join the spiritual fellowship with others, our soul grows hard. Don’t isolate yourself. Please. If you don’t know anyone or need someone new to hang out with, Facebook me. I’ll come hang out with you myself.

First semester: horizontal social expansion, Second semester: vertical social expansion

Your first semester of college, you meet a bajillion people. You could say you expand your social horizons horizontally: you get to know a little about a lot of people. However, second semester, you expand your social horizons vertically: you get to know a little people a lot. While a college student typically meets a wide array of people their first semester, they really narrow down their social group and get to know a few people really well. Both of these times are important. First semester, you get to survey that social landscape and see where you could fit in. Second semester, you typically find that group of somebodys and really watch your friendships grow. Enjoy both periods of your life. Don’t yearn for one while you’re in the other. God will change you social circles more than once while you are in college, I guarantee it.

A pretty face is not a pretty heart

As a guy, coming to UK is the promise land. Babes…everywhere. There are beautiful girls wherever you walk. I remember I was such a goober that I bought a pair of sunglasses just so I could look at the pretty girls walk by without them noticing. I was a maniacal son of a gun. As a high school boy who had never dated anyone, this was my chance. The odds were in my favor. If you can’t tell at this point, I didn’t think “walking in the flesh” was necessarily a bad thing.

Fortunately, God kept me from harm. What I quickly learned was physical beauty was worth little in the grand scheme of things. Just because she has pretty face does not mean she has a pretty heart. In fact, it can be quite the opposite. I remember numerous times where I would admire a girl from a distance and then one day I would actually interact with them to find out that they are sinful just like me. Quite disappointing really. Fortunately, God taught me that a proverbs 31 woman will bless you more than a Victoria Secret Model.

For you gals reading this post, the opposite is true as well. I’ve noticed that some of the most worthy guys are quiet, shy, and unassuming. Don’t judge a man by their appearance, but by their character, their community, and their heart.

Parties are just a mirage

All through college I saw all these awesome depictions of college parties and how wild they were. So I went with some guys to traipse about State Street to find an experience like the ones in the movies. We were clueless and people could tell we were freshman in an instant.

After a few experiences with parties, I quickly realized that while on the outside it appeared like everyone was having a fun time, on the inside everyone was just looking for something that would fill them up. People would find themselves “going out” every night to indulge in all sorts of earthly pleasures only to find that they needed to go bigger and harder the next time. It was all really quite shallow. What I had thought was the pinnacle of social interaction turned out to be a hollow sham of hungry people searching for something they couldn’t find.

Christian brotherhood is worth more than gold

I came into college knowing a fellow named Zach Motes from High School. He was a really nice guy—and quite popular—so I figured getting to know him couldn’t hurt. We chilled a little bit over the summer and it was a blessing to have a familiar face around campus. Zach invited me to a thing called Wildcats at Worship. I grew up in the church. I was comfortable at church. Why not continue the trend? We went and met a guy named Matt Ledford. Long story short, Matt got us plugged into a growth group (called shift groups now) at the Christian Student Fellowship (CSF) with another guy named Reid Wahlbrink (REIDDDDD). I started going to this little shindig and I found myself oddly attracted to the fellowship I shared with this group of guys. Every week, we studied a book called Crazy Love and grew together in laughter and wisdom. My participation continued on to meet a few other guys—Michael Rundell, Joseph Thacker, CJ Carter—who I really enjoyed hanging out with. We all rallied round each other and began finding a friendship that was deeper than anything in high school.

Through fellowship with other Christian men, I experienced so much of the fellowship that the bible depicts. As iron sharpens iron, we sharpened one another. We all got involved at CSF and quickly found that community, specifically community amongst the same gender, is something that gives life. There is something about the Holy Spirit that connects believers together in unity. We are all part of one body. When you meet someone who shares the love for God and the love of God, a beautiful friendship arises.

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” 
― C.S. Lewis

“What draws people to be friends is that they see the same truth. They share it.” 
― C.S. Lewis

Again, for my female readers, the same applies. They say “You are the company you keep,” so keep good company.

You can actually be friends with girls

In high school, I was “friends” with plenty of girls, but I would never call them up and say let’s hang out for the sole purpose of enjoying each other’s friendship. Once I got to college, I learned that you can actually be friends with a girl without romantic interests involved. Now some romantic interests may arise over time, or spring about here or there, but a guy and girl can actually enjoy each other’s friendship without sexual attraction. Crazy, right?

Freshman year I found myself sitting at Commons at a table full of girls… and actually enjoying the conversation. I know, I am as surprised by that as you are, but it happened. In fact, being friends with a girl is really rewarding. Never in my life had I ever looked forward to hanging out with a girl I wasn’t interested in romantically. It challenged me. It taught me a whole bunch about people who are different than me. It made me thankful that I could have sisters in Christ, not dating prospect, but actual sisters. But I have to admit, I felt pretty macho being the only guy at a table of girl. It got to my head. Fortunately for me, God has a way of knocking me off my high horse onto a soft bedding of humility.

There is no GPA in heaven

Finals week is the scourge of the college freshman’s life. All their life, freshmen have been taught to fear it. We are told that if you don’t do well on finals, you won’t get good grades, then you won’t have a good GPA, then you won’t get a job, and then you’re screwed. But life is more than a GPA and God is greater than academic standing. Francis Chan taught me that worry and stress aren’t in God’s plan for our life. When I am consumed by my problems – stressed out by my life, my family, my GPA – I actually convey the belief that I think the circumstances are more important than God’s command to always rejoice.  In other words, that I have a “right” to disobey God because of the magnitude of my responsibilities.

Worry implies that we don’t quite trust that God is big enough, powerful enough, or loving enough to take care of what is happening in our lives.

Stress says that the things we are involved in are important enough to merit our impatience, our lack of grace toward others, or our tight grip of control.

Basically, these two behaviors communicate that it’s ok to sin and not trust God because the stuff in my life is somehow exceptional.  Both worry and stress reek of arrogance.  They declare our tendency to forget that we’ve been forgiven, that our lives here are brief, that we are headed to a place where we won’t be lonely, afraid, or hurt ever again, and that in the context of God’s strength, our problems are small, indeed.

Don’t let school get in the way of your education

An old friend of mine gave me this advice. It is certainly true. You may go to college for the technical purpose of getting a degree so you can get a job. But there is a more worthy purpose at hand. At college, you are placed in an incubator of thought, feelings, ideas, challenges, people, and changes. You will grow in college. Do your best not to let your studies inhibit your personal growth. In fact, for most of my college career, I forgot that I was even there to study computer science because I was so busy learning about God, people, and how to live a worthy  and joy filled life.

You don’t have to find a spouse in college

I came into college with the idea that you have 4 years to find a mate in college then you’re screwed. Where I got this idea, I don’t know. Fortunately, God dismantled this lie in my heart, because for the first year of my academic career I ran around like a chicken with its head cut off looking for a girl that could actually tolerate me. Now, the older and wiser me advises the stupid freshman me to not even date freshman year. There is so much learning to be done in the first year of college; dating someone is not one of those learning experiences. Besides, even if you did find your “soul mate”, you would have to wait 3 stinkin’ years to marry them. As a man in the middle of an engagement, I can tell you that will be torture. Don’t do it. Please. Your older and wiser self will thank me later.

That’s it for freshman year. Stay tuned for the next three posts. I’m sure they will be out shortly considering I have no job and no school to fiddle with.

Sophomore Year: remyeaton.blogspot.com/2012/12/sophomore-year.html