Confessions of a Former Dorm Hermit

There were many pieces of advice that I brushed off when I entered college as a freshman. How could I not? I feel like the only conversations that I had with adults during the summer before I headed off to Virginia Tech were about “The Great College Experience.” I heard it all: “Don’t gain the freshmen 15!” “Make sure you set rules with your roommate at the beginning of the year!” “Partying will make you fail!” After a while, it all turned into the same mumbo-jumbo. But the one piece of advice that I disregarded most often was the whole “Make sure you get really involved on campus, or else you won’t have a good college experience!”
 
This always made me laugh. Of course I was going to get involved once I got to college! Heck, I was involved with tons of things all throughout high school. Do you think I could have survived just doing school work and nothing else? Not even a little. No, I was determined to get involved once I got to Tech, simply because it was a no-brainer. College campuses are filled with things to do, I reasoned. Not becoming involved—how was that even possible?
 
Oh, was it possible. So possible, in fact, that I after a while, I didn’t even realize what I was doing: I was subconsciously avoiding becoming involved with anything.
 
I slowly began to fall into the habit of being what I like to call a Dorm Hermit. I can’t say that I ever purposely chose to live like this the first two semesters of my college life. After all, I couldn’t help that the closest friends I made my freshman year just happened to live on the same floor as me—my roommate being one of them. I couldn’t help the fact that my dorm just happened to be located right next to the most delicious dining hall on campus. And honestly, I couldn’t help the fact that I just turned into a lazy pile of mush after all of my morning classes. After 4 or 5 o’clock every day, I was just so unmotivated to do anything.  Walking across campus to get to all the meetings of the organizations I was trying to be involved in just became a hassle for me. It finally got so bad that I would just come back from my classes and lie on my bed for three or four hours at a time. When I wasn’t refreshing Facebook like a crazy woman I was either watching miscellaneous movies or shopping for clothes online. Any socialization on weekdays was limited to dinner dates with the few friends I had that lived on my hall.
 
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Over the summer, I had an epiphany. Sure, I had really great friends who I had gotten to know in my dorm and some guys that I had met at various weekend parties, but I needed to be a part of something bigger at Virginia Tech! I didn’t want to go back for fall semester 2010 and end up then becoming an APARTMENT Hermit. It was then and there I decided that I was going to get my college social life back on track. No more relying on parties over the weekend or random mall shopping trips for my source of human interaction. I was determined to join some organizations on campus.
 
That girl who would spend hours in her dorm is unrecognizable to me now. This semester, I feel like I have so many obligations—and I can honestly say that I LOVE it. In addition to officially joining a sorority, I now anchor for our campus news station, help out other organizations with film and video, and even more exciting, I’m a part of Her Campus! I still have time for the friends I made last year in my dorm (I’m actually living with them now!) but I have met so many more people this year than I could have ever imagined. I finally feel like I am living the college experience that so many people gave advice to me about one and a half years ago.

You don’t have to be too busy to breathe in order to enjoy your college years, but you shouldn’t be a Dorm Hermit either! It can be so daunting (or seemingly demanding) to put yourself out there and join groups on campus, but it’s honestly worth it. This is the only time you will ever have in your life to join that Rocky Horror Picture Show fan club, or try out for the crew team, or even have a show on your school’s radio station. Whether it’s one thing or three things, find your niche within college! It doesn’t have to be all about making good grades; make memories too, and find something to do with all of that extra free time! Because Facebook gets old really quick…and trust me, when you look back on college, you’ll want something more exciting than more memorable Facebook statuses to remember!