Before Arriving on Campus: Understanding How Will I "Fit In" ?

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Before freshman year begins, you might spend hours wondering what campus life will be like, how you'll interact with others, and how you'll fit in.

Fitting in, in the broadest sense, really just means being part of your college's community"it doesn't mean you're conforming to any prescribed behavior pattern. The good news, students say, is that the only key to fitting in, as we define it here, is being yourself.

In other words, the only approach rejected on campus is phoniness.

"Don't sacrifice who you are as an individual in order to fit in"that was middle-school stuff," says David Doerkin (University of California, Berkeley ).

David recalls two experiences where he had to choose between following the crowd and asserting his individuality"and both times he took the latter approach. Unlike most dorm floors with freshmen, David's floor was quiet. Students preferred to work at their computers with their doors closed, and socializing was minimal.

"I felt pretty alienated from the rest of the people on my floor," he says. "I wanted to go out and meet people, and the majority of my floormates were complete shut-ins with little inclination to go to parties. So I decided to go out on my own to meet people, and by a couple of weeks later, I had met some people with whom I'm still friends today. It just took some personal initiative and exploration, not falling into the patterns already adopted by other people."

Later in his college career, David happened across another issue that can divide campuses and groups of friends"the Greek system. Several of his friends wanted to join a fraternity. David had no interest.

"Instead of just going along with what my friends wanted to do, I spent some time exploring other options and found the co-op housing system, in which I have lived for the past three years," says David, referring to a group housing system at Berkeley in which students share responsibilities such as management, cooking, and maintenance. "I made many friends living in the co-ops without sacrificing what I wanted socially."

Another key to fitting in"being part of your campus community"is working together with your fellow students. This can seem difficult, since you likely know very few of them. But college freshmen, despite all the talk of diversity, are bound by many similarities:

• They arrive on campus at roughly the same age.
• They excelled, to some degree, in high school, and must prove themselves again.
• They're experiencing their first taste of freedom.
• They've never lived with a stranger before.
• They know relatively little about their new living and academic environment.

As a result, basic courtesy"communication, cooperation, and respect"accomplishes more than any planned personality approach. As the following chapters will show, open communication, which includes listening as well as speaking, is a key to navigating the complexities of college life.