WOW Week

After all my excitement and anxiety over college, it has finally come. Now, a week into it I can hardly believe it has only been six days since I moved in. At my university, the first week is called WOW Week, and is an orientation for all incoming students. Every freshman is put into a group of about fifteen kids, and is led by two WOW leaders. I was extremely nervous to see who would be in my group. Would they be people that I would enjoy spending my first week with, or would I not be able to connect with any of them? Thankfully, I have ended up loving my group and the people in it. We have gone hiking, to the beach, to the town’s farmers’ market and even made pancakes one morning at my leaders’ apartment. Every moment that I have away from my group I try to use making new friends. I am not naturally outgoing and so this is quite a task for me, but I have been able to find quite a few freshmen that I get along with and share my desperation for making friends. Over the last few days I have found the true art of meeting new people. I have discovered that the best way is to be painfully blunt and just go up to them and introduce yourself. Although this might be weird is most settings, it has become the norm on my campus. After the first hello, discussion topics include your major, what you plan to do with it, where you are living, and what classes you are taking. When you start to feel more comfortable with your company, it is time to move on to topics such as your roommate and their weird habits and funny stories about the few days you've had on campus. For those of you that don't have any problems making new friends, this info might not seem needed. However, I hope a few of you understand where I am coming from. All in all, this first week has been incredible, but it seems impossible that I will be spending the next nine months here. It almost feels like summer camp, but that will most likely stop with classes on Monday.