Article July 26, 2010 Issue

COLLEGE, FRIENDSHIP, AND AN OPEN-DOOR POLICY

BY SUSAN TISH

WHEN I ARRIVED at my freshman dormitory in college, all the confidence that I'd felt about living away from home drained away. Throughout my first semester, i felt like a fish out of water and didn't feel as if I fit in with all the other girls in my corridor on the third floor of Dorsey Hall.

I wasn't in a sorority or a part of any other organization, as it seemed everyone else was. In addition to this, I didn't drink or enjoy the midnight-to-three-a.m. party scene as it seemed everyone else did. To be sure, there were really great girls on my floor who were kind to me and would have welcomed my friendship, but I was so caught up in how I didn't fit in that I wasn't able to see or grasp the hands they were extending out to me.