I’m starting my third year of college this week, and it’s finally sunk in that saying “I’m a junior” feels less terrifying than I thought it would. Actually, it took sitting through the first lecture of a freshmen-filled introductory class I’m enrolled in this semester to see it.

Until this point, it had just felt kind of weird to think of myself as an upperclassman in college. But when I sat down between two of the “bro”-est freshmen dudes you can image a few days ago, I was able to see the gap between the point at which I started to the point I find myself at now.

I’m not saying I was a super “bro” freshman dude, but I bet my freshman self could identify with these two a lot more than I could the other day.

It was something about how they carried themselves— though they were certainly friendly enough with me —that made me notice right away that they probably hadn’t thought about what this first week of college would be like.

Maybe it was how they referred to the dorm-mates they’d known for a whole four days as “really good friends,” or how their strategy to flirt with the freshmen girls sitting in front of us was to be purposefully condescending jerks to them — unfortunately, this tactic worked — but I felt this unmistakable vibe coming from them that I can only describe as “freshman.”

It involves a naievity, for sure, but not one that you can really blame them for having. Did you know exactly how people would act on your first day of college? I didn’t. I had a few ideas, but I realized after a few weeks in that I didn’t try to think about what it’d really be like. Rather, I took for granted the few assumptions I had and carried them with me into my first lecture bowl.

You can’t hate on them, because you’ve been them; you can’t blame them, since they have zero precedent for the situation in which they find themselves stepping into Gamble 1, the Scale-Up room or Education 7 for the first time.

So I think that’s the biggest difference between the older kids and the younger — that one group has just had the advantage of seeing it once or twice before and being ready to act. It doesn’t say they’re better or necessarily more well-equipped to be a student. It just means they’ve had more practice.

Still, there’s something incredibly valuable in having that experience. I’m not about to walk into a lecture bowl and make fun of a girl’s outfit to get her to look at my bro-tank, or have my only question to the guy next to me be, “Do you think we could not come to lecture and still pass?”

It’s whatever you want it to be, dude. This whole college thing is up to you. It’s scary, but it’s great, that life is actually in your hands somewhat. Go to lecture, or become a lumberjack, just make sure you’re being sincere about it.

Will Beaton is the Editor-in-Chief of The Dakota Student. You can reach him at [email protected].