tell 'em thompson

Author: Thompson Davis

Have you ever noticed how awesome Middlebury looks on the College home page? Needless to say, if people took that thing halfway seriously there would be a lot of pissed off people.

Let's say I was a high school senior from the planet "Snompson" (an alien) with aspirations of attending an elite liberal-arts college, but without the means to travel. After a short Internet search I would probably run across the Middlebury Web site and fall head over heels in love with its language programs and Sound of Music-inspired campus.

Now let's pretend that I actually got in. (At Snompson Central I was editor of the yearbook, captain of the lacrosse team, Hug Club founder and MacArthur "Genius" grant recipient) Upon arrival as a Feb, I would be mortified to find Middlebury in it's winter state ­- a frozen wasteland - and rue the day I ever found that god-forsaken Web site. For those of you who haven't been there in a while, the home page generates a triptych of photos depicting scenes of cheery co-eds and landscapes bathed in magic-hour glow. A far cry from the meteorological hell we endure six out of the nine months we're here.

For many students here there has been a big difference between what they expected and what they've experienced. I of course, am no exception.

My first semester, I hated this place. And it wasn't just the weather - it was the people too. I thought the guys on my hall were obnoxious, immature and stupid - which wasn't far off the mark - but looking back, I was just as stupid and a lot whinier. The real problem was that Middlebury was failing to meet the lofty expectations I had created for it all summer long.

These expectations included:

Becoming instant soul bros with my roommate.

Hot smart girls would start liking me.

Everyone would be into the same cool stuff I was into.

And, perhaps most damaging, Middlebury would be the free-love utopia that it was when my dad went here.

That's right. That whole summer I was getting the Middlebury story by way of my dad who wears rose-colored nostalgia glasses with panthers and pot leaves on them. Just like Dad I was going to Middlebury, and it was going to rule just as hard, if not harder, than my dad and the class of 1977.

So of course, to my shock and dismay, it did not rule as expected. And that crushed me. As far as I was concerned, I had already bought into the Middlebury brand name and I deserved to feel like the kids on that homepage. Why didn't I want to paint my face blue and go to hockey games? What was wrong with me?

It was like buying a can of Axe deodorant only to find out that the Axe effect is just a marketing ploy.

But, you know what, I'm not that special. For every four kids that double major in Chinese and Econ there's one trying to smoke oregano. I found my niche, and maybe not so ironically, it wasn't in the image of those kids on the homepage.