Freshman Reflections

            They never tell you everything you need to know. This sentiment is wide-spread during finals, often directed at professors and TAs who didn’t highlight (or who did highlight and then you slept through) that one crucial piece of information on the final. In fact, this absence of surety is a hallmark of the college experience. Not sure where that obscure seminar room is. Not sure if the food at the dinning hall is fish or chicken. Not sure what you’ll be doing in four…now three years. Not sure who’ll you will be when you walk out those gates.

            As a way to combat that sense of not really knowing what the hell you’re doing, countless books have been published on college. This time last year, as a soon-to-be freshman, I picked up one or two of my own. They were informative (sometimes), funny (sometimes), but mostly they served to calm my nerves. Others had done this before and escaped relatively unscathed. Why couldn’t I? I arrived on campus a few months later, those trusty bibles packed away among my things, and promptly forgot about them. Life moved too fast those first few weeks to pick up a book, let alone one not assigned for class.

            Luckily for me, one of the books that was assigned to me for class turned out to be another ‘tips and tricks’ book, much like the ones gathering dust in my dorm room, that would help me start solving the what the hell am I doing conundrum. Entitled What They Don’t Teach You in Film School, it is a book of 161 strategies for making your own movie. Now pretend that said movie is instead your life and you will have an understanding of why this particular book is so helpful when it comes to getting your life together.

            As a way to reflect on my first year at college (wow…it’s over already…) and to hopefully share some whimsical, dare say, wisdom, I’ll be writing a series of reflection pairing life advice for freshman and filmmakers. I can make no promises about its accuracy, relevance, or usefulness. But I can promise words (and maybe even a few pictures). Make of it what you will.