Andrew Hampp | Pop Arts editor

Credit: Beth Rankin

My freshman year was extremely uneventful. Most would say it was flat-out boring.

I started my typical day by going to class, by myself, then marching over to the dearly departed second-floor cafeteria in Tri-Towers for lunch, again by myself.

After lunch, I usually went up to my dorm room in Koonce, where I probably took a nap because I had nothing else to do. After my nap, it was off to class again, where I would probably nod off because I didn’t sleep enough during my nap.

For my evenings, I was typically holed up in my dorm room, playing solitaire by myself, waiting for my roommate to come home because he was one of my three friends on campus. Every now and then I would bum a ride off a friend with a car and go on a Wal-Mart or Chapel Hill run, but those were often few and far between.

Although I still look back fondly on my freshman year, all I can think of is how much time I wasted during my first nine months as a college student. I had very little campus involvement, wasn’t making many friends and my most memorable weekends were spent at home, away from Kent.

I’ve since more than made up for my lazy days as a freshman, particularly through my involvement with the Stater and all the friends I’ve made on our staff. But now that I’m going into my fourth and final year here at Kent, I find myself overwhelmed by all the things I still want to do. So my advice to this year’s batch of freshmen is this: Start meeting people and getting involved now. Otherwise your best friend will be a deck of cards.

Andrew Hampp is a senior journalism major and the pop arts editor for the Summer Kent Stater. Contact him at [email protected].