Freshman Reflection of Fordham Upon First Semester's Completion

I first visited Fordham in April of 2007, it was one of my first college visits, and it was instant love.. The leafy campus and old stone buildings contrasting with the bustling life of New York City won me over like no other college could. I returned to the Midwest and proceeded to profess my love for this emerald of intellectual and social activity in the heart of the greatest city of the world.

 

Papers were written, physics tests crammed for, all of it with Fordham in the back of my mind.

 

With the work and the passing time after my visit, I began to pin unrealistic expectations to Fordham. Coming to the University I expected cosmopolitan parties in the city; I would sip exotic rum while talking to diplomats about their work in various continents, all the while free jazz playing in the background. Every time I spent an intellectually unfulfilling night drinking in a suburban Milwaukee basement, I knew in my heart that things would be different at Fordham. My classes would be composed solely of what I wanted to study, and I would never have to study math again.

 

My first days and weeks at Fordham left me defined as a quiet boy, studying the actions of my new classmates and slowly becoming acquainted to the city. I quickly realized how preposterous my high school impressions of college were, but rather than simply accepting these outlandish expectations as faults of my own, I took them out on the university. A deep seeded resentment boiled within me as I would wake up at 8:30 for core curriculum classes that I had no interest in. The resentment evolved into disappointment and anger, all the while I missed the comfort and security of my friends and my home. Had I been asked to write about Fordham just last month, I can assure you the tone would have been decidedly negative, although seemingly with every passing day and every continued lesson, college, Fordham, New York City, they are all beginning to grow on me and win my praise and appreciation.

 

The Thanksgiving holiday solidified my affection for Fordham and New York City. I returned home, thankful to see my family and friends, but by the Saturday evening of my trip I grew increasingly excited to return back to college. I missed my new friends at Fordham, the energy of the city, and the readily available sources of fun and lack of regulation which have thus far defined my college experience. I’ve learned a lot in my first three months here, a little bit in the classroom, although a great deal more outside. The disappointment has by and large fled from my general mindset and has instead been replaced with hope and anticipation for the next four years to come.

 

No, not everything is perfect at Fordham. The food can most accurately be described as awful, I am preparing to enter a second semester of classes which still do not even begin to touch upon my passions and the fear of walking alone at night in the Bronx is at times irritating. Perhaps things are not what I imagined, although they rarely are, and I do not believe that I can find a time in my life that I have had more fun, learned more about life and school or met as many new people and experienced as many new things as I have in this first semester of life at college. I find myself excited and hopeful for the future and satisfied with my past being just that.

 

John O’Neil, FCRH ‘13, is an undeclared Urban Studies major. He hails from Whitefish Bay, Wis.