An Observation

They look so lost, though they are standing in front of the assigned classroom. Big doe eyes, searching the crowd for a kind face or a familiar face and yet just a few months back they were a part of a pack, where their world was owned and ran by their word. They made others happy or they made them sad. Many were rulers who were kind, others were cruel and survived off of other’s misery, and these cruel rulers seemed to be the most lost.

Pack runners do not know how to survive outside of their community and they fear becoming the victims, that is why the first days, they arrive with a designer hair style complete with designer product, their clothes, designer too and their shoes and accessories including their bling bling all match. Many carry the trendiest school apparel from the name brand backpacks to the designer note pads and pencils and pens. Some haul around laptops and the latest listening devices and have cell phones attached to their ears or their belts or outside their purses and many call old friends, family, and you hear their nervous laughs. You will see them carrying logo coffee mugs and trying to appear to be grown up and old, while their newness is so apparent.

I watch them and smile at them knowing if I had invaded their world a smile from me would have received no response. That would not be cool. However, I also know that if they make it, many won’t, but if they do, they will gradually make friends who are not like their old friends, diverse instead, lasting friends, and their pack mentality will leave and they will become members of groups and their behaviors will change. Next year, they will dress less designer and more for comfort, their hair will get combed but the product will not be a priority, their back packs will still be new but things will not match and they will smile and fit in and have friends and will not be lost. The young men may sport a new beard or unshaven face while the girls may come to class with new looks that are different from how they were, perhaps piercing, or tattoos or even less or more clothes.

By their third year, their back packs are torn but they do not care, their clothes have faded but they do not care, their conversations will revolve around their disciplines and they will know some things, new things and they will have survived the facings of the truths and pulled through with few scars. You might hear new ideas contrary to their families’ beliefs and the coffee mug that they bought in the beginning is now without the logo and instead of hot chocolate they drink espresso or coffee, black no sugar, they are, after all, grown.

The fourth year, they lose it all, they are lucky to carry their books in a sack, their clothes are torn and unwashed as is their hair, they arrive to class on some days wearing pj bottoms or tops and they have bags under their eyes and all they want to do is get through the last year and if you confront them they tell you this is their last fucking year and to leave them the fuck alone. Their friends give them support, their professors understand, and the graduate students smile and remember the senior year with profound binary oppositions from love/hate to happiness/sadness and the gamut of emotions added to the work load prepares them for their life after undergraduate school.
It is the evolution of education. The process that takes lost doe eyed freshmen and transforms them into adults with individual ideas. It takes the blank slates of childhood and adolescents and family and gives them their true identity through nurturing and education. They have life-long friends, new heroes, and their experiences will never be forgotten. It is the American way, the way it is suppose to be. It is growing up.