College Turned Me Preppy and It Freaked Me Out

I first became aware of my stylistic transition towards the classic preppy New Englander when I realized that I was the owner of a pair of scummy frat Sperrys. “Who the hell has frat Sperrys?” I had asked myself literally out loud in bewilderment. At the time, I tried to soothe myself by making up excuses. Maybe I only had these nasty boat shoes because nobody had warned me that the AD basement was going to chew them up, gargle them with Natty Lite, and spit them back out onto my fluffy white dorm room carpet. I hadn’t wanted to make those shoes my primary weekend footwear. It had just happened. It was a simple freshman mistake. Or maybe, just maybe, I had become preppy.

 

It wouldn’t be shocking. I grew up in a suburb “just outside of Boston” and, although I’m part of the minority at Trinity who didn’t attend a private high school, I can still honestly state that over sixty percent of my hometown wore nothing but Bean boots throughout each snowy winter. I can also honestly state that a group of girls at my high school’s senior dress up day went as Vineyard Vines whales. But don’t let that taint your vision of pre-college me. I was never preppy by association. In fact, I didn’t even know what a Shep shirt was until a few months into college when I caught myself desperately searching the Internet trying to figure out what those pastel quarter-zips were called. (And then I threw up in my mouth when I saw the price while simultaneously adding the light pink one to my Hanukkah wish list. Thanks again for coming through on that one, Grandma.)

 

Despite my typically logical nature, I continued to deny my preppy transformation for quite some time after noticing those filthy fratty boat shoes. I ignored the fact that I often forced myself through afternoons wearing horribly unsupportive Jack Rogers sandals simply because they “completed my look.” I bragged to my home friends about the success of my college’s nationally recognized squash team, oblivious to the immense preppiness of the sport and its waspy little sister, the crew team.

 

I only really began to admit that I had a problem when I blushingly told my friends that one of my least responsible drunk moments of freshman year involved stumbling to my laptop during a pregame and purchasing a Hillflint letter sweater online. Drunk me had claimed that the price was fine because the sweater was Merino wool. Sober friends had subtly disagreed, and told me I needed to accept that my style had changed.

 

And it had. But I have happily realized after some deliberation that I haven’t actually abandoned everything I previously stood for. So what if I’ve caved a little bit to the culture that surrounds me every day at my small New England college? I’m still me. I still have never entered a gym, drive around daily in my beloved beat up minivan, and harbor a minor but prevalent addiction to creamy Swiss Laughing Cow cheese. Sure, my style has taken on some modifications, but they are not necessarily a reason to be embarrassed.

 

Change is hard to deal with. I know that sending back the new Oxford-striped sheets I ordered for my dorm room to get them monogrammed has only further cemented these new lifestyle adjustments, but change doesn’t have to be negative. Change is good and important, and you will never know who you are until you’ve tried out little pieces of everyone else. I mean, think about it: if you never changed once in your life, you’d probably still be wearing Juicy tracksuits over Sugar Lips tank tops the way you did in middle school. (I’m literally cringing.) So embrace trends. Let yourself buy that second pair of non-frat Sperrys just because the white ones are totally in right now. Who knows? Maybe they actually will complement your white jeans. You’ll never know unless you try.