a Freshman’s essay in English Comp 101

How College Is Different from High School

by Tami Smithers

Ms. Fieldstone, English Comp I01

 

        My first impression in September was that the campus of Campbell-Frank College is very beautiful.  I never saw such green grass all over.  There are a lot of trees too, big ones, and when all those leaves fell in October it was very pretty.  We have a nice fall season in Rhode Island, too, but not like this.  And now the snow is about to start.  The buildings are laid out well and there is lots of space.  I especially like the library, so many carrels to hide out in and bury yourself in books with no interruptions.

 

        And there are so many courses to choose from!  My major is math but it’s only nine credits a semester.  I’m preregistering for the Spring and it’s hard to choose what my two electives will be.  I’m curious about everything.  I’ve always been interested in things.  Looking over the catalog, there’s not much that I wouldn’t want to sign up for.  And I like how I can study whenever I want, like in the middle of the night if I have to.

 

        But most of all I like the people I’ve met here.  So many different kinds of friends I’ve made.  My room is currently a triple (because of construction in Rankin Hall) but both my roommates are very nice.  The girls in my wing are friendly and it’s interesting to know people who came from such different places and get friendly even though on the surface you might not have much in common with them.

 

        In conclusion, I think the main thing that makes college different from high school is the variety of new people I meet here.

        Tami, sitting cross-legged at her dorm room desk, tapped out this last sentence on her beat-up laptop.  Then she sighed and looked down at her nipples, erect as always, and further down to her pubic hair.  And added one more line to her essay.

        AND THE FACT THAT I AM ALWAYS NAKED!!!!

        She glanced furtively across the little room at her roommate Jen, lying in her pajamas and wool socks in the lushly blanketed lower bunk.  Jen was engrossed in her iPhone.  Her Peter Pan haircut never seemed to be out of place, framing her gentle African-American face.

        Jen wouldn’t hop up to see what Tami was writing but Tami quickly deleted that last sentence anyway.  This essay was such a fake.  She was supposed to write about her impressions of being away at college, a standard assignment for this way-too-easy compulsory English Comp class.  But the last thing she wanted was to write about the one impression that overwhelmed all the others.  Consequently she couldn’t think of any real ideas.  Her imagination was cramped, strangled.  She looked at her little essay again.  Rats.  I sound like a sixth-grader.

        She looked outside, at the campus on this cold, misty Sunday morning, December 3.  Not much green grass now.  Last night’s frost was melting on the bare trees.  She slouched, wondering how she was going to get through this winter -- naked!