Beth Rankin | Web editor

Credit: Beth Rankin

Before I came to Kent State in the fall of 2003, I knew exactly what I wanted out of my freshman year: sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.

I wanted to live the typical college life (as displayed by movies like Van Wilder and Animal House). When I first got to Kent State, I thought I was set: frat parties every Thursday, a long-term boyfriend and a roommate with an endless supply of pot. I had everything a naive girl from rural Ohio could ever want.

Boy, was I wrong.

After getting my ass grabbed incessantly by Neanderthals at frat parties, getting bored with smoking up and watching Half Baked every night and getting fed up with my high school sweetheart, I threw my middle finger in the air and said goodbye to the “typical” college lifestyle.

I stopped going to obnoxious frat keggers (they were always getting busted anyway), got rid of my hometown beau and got involved in groups on campus that helped me realize that there was life on campus outside of my dorm room. I changed my major, my mindset and my music taste, and I became a person I like much better.

Sure, it was hard to completely change my life in a matter of a few weeks, but here’s a small bit of information you may or may not have heard: During your first year of college, your life is going to turn upside down whether you want it to or not. You’ll begin to question your values, morals, friends and path in life.

And that’s OK. It’s perfectly natural to end your freshman year saying, “Christ. What the hell just happened?”

It will be hard and you’re going to mess up. I did. But after a while, you find your niche. Hang in there. It’s well worth it in the end.

Beth Rankin is a junior newspaper journalism major and the assistant managing editor/Web for the Summer Kent Stater. Contact her at [email protected].