Needless to say, when I arrived at the University of North Carolina, I was in awe. The most shocking moment was walking, with map in hand, to my first class and couldn't help but notice the similarity of this fiasco to that of a large anthill. I was amazed! This is not to say that I am in any way opposed to this; my high school was too small and everyone knew everything about everyone else. I was simply out of my past environment and in a brand new one full of young people like me, all trying to scurry to their classes.
What is even more amazing than the sheer number of students here is the challenge that the University faces with accommodating them all. For one, there are innumerable amounts of building, some old, some new, many resembling or smelling of old and creepy hospitals, and they are all clean. Next the University has to find a place to house the majority of its students, which is a great feat in itself. But maybe the most impressive is the school's ability to feed all of these hungry mouths. The length line for Ram's head suggests that John Lennon rose from the dead and was at the end signing autographs, and not that there was just decent food waiting at the end.
Through all this, a student has to work hard to make himself more than just another PID or another serial number. I am sure many students (especially freshman) feel belittled and insignificant by the towering buildings large masses of people, all of whom seem so comfortable hanging out with their group of friends. A student could become a part of something such as a club, group, fraternity (although I am mildly opposed to them), or sorority in order to a sense of belonging and meaning. But through all this I would encourage that person to keep their own identity and not be engulfed into the amoeba of kids sporting the standard issue oxford, khaki pants (or shorts for the summertime fraternity outfit) and of Sperry's.
In conclusion, I expect that plenty of new freshman share this same reaction. I encourage them to push through the first few days of school, it will get better and become more fun than it already is.
I understand where you are coming from when you write that the masses of people and large buildings can seem kind of overwhelming at UNC. I also went to a boarding school for my junior and senior year of high school. We had about three hundred people in my graduating class. The difference between my situation and yours is that one hundred forty-seven people from my graduating class are now part of our freshman class here at UNC. I still agree that the UNC campus is large because my dorm was as far away as possible from my classes at my old school and it only took me about three minutes to get to my farthest class. UNC can seem quite large at times, but I think it looks larger on a map than it does in real life. Now that we have had time to learn the campus and meet some new people, I think that the campus seems smaller and the community seems smaller and closer together.
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