My freshman year exceeded my expectation is many ways. First of all, I hadn’t heard the best things about my dorm after my roommate and I chose it. When we first met last summer we talked about our orientation experiences and somewhat cautiously danced around the subject of what we expected. Finally, we both admitted the people in our orientation groups from our dorm seemed strange. We worried that we wouldn’t make friends, and that the people were all going to be weird or antisocial. So many people told us that they had found their best friends in their dorm, and both of worried that might not happen.
The rest of the summer I sat on these thoughts, stressing about what it would actually be like. This was along with the worry that came along with going off to college in a new city in a new state. It was exciting and terrifying at the same time. I was definitely starting a new chapter of my life, one with independence but also with responsibility. It scared me.
So when my roommate and I instantly clicked with not only each other but also with some of the people around us, it felt amazing. I knew right away that I didn’t have to worry about making friends or finding a place to fit in. We found people to hang out with, to go to dinner with, to go to football games with; we found friends. Right on our floor we had a community and a family away from home, and I have some of my best memories of freshman year with the people on my floor.
We cheered on the Badgers together, we sledded down Bascom Hill, we visited the Dells, and we roasted marshmallows together. Yes, we did a few other things in between, but I would like to share some of my favorite moments of the year. 1. The very first house meeting where someone kept asking Alex (my roommate) to hand them the notecards we needed and she misheard them so she kept offering them more cookies.

