My freshman year, I wore black t-shirts with the names of obscure punk bands on them that no one at Pleasantville would ever know. Needless to say, I thought I was the coolest, most original person at Pace—turns out I was pretty far from the truth. I went all of my classes, getting accustomed to my peers and trying to assimilate into college culture. My roommate, James Ward (aka the illest) joined the brothers of Phi Kappa Tau, but I was resistant (putting it lightly) to joining Greek Life because it really wasn’t my style. Some of my other friends also took interest in it and I slowly started to watch them fall out into their own groups.

Sophomore year was somewhat uneventful in regards to milestones, I went through the motions of the previous year but I continued to connect with a wide variety of people, some of which I consider some of the best people I’ve ever met. This was my definitely my self-destructive phase; it got to the point that I ended up becoming good friends with the nurses at Phelps Hospital. I think it was my way of coping with inner demons, trying to fit in with people I didn’t belong with and fighting the weekend boredom struggle at Pace. At this point I was done with Pleasantville, I hated it and every thing associated with it.

After I hit my low, I had to make a major lifestyle change, which landed me at the New York City campus for a semester. Being a native of New Jersey, I spent many nights in high school gawking with curiosity across the Hudson at those bright city lights and I figured now was the time to act on my ambitions. Switching to the city campus changed my life, it gave me the cold hard slap of reality that I desperately needed. I opened my eyes for the first time in my college experience and it had nothing to do with the classes I was taking or the students at the campus, it was being around millions of other regular people everyday that put my life into perspective. But alas, my time spent there was short lived because the Media Communications department is exclusive to Pleasantville campus, so I trekked back up to Westchester to finish out the year.

I came back to Pleasantville to find that the majority of my friends had either joined a fraternity, were about to join a fraternity or were moments away from graduating. I was not a happy camper. I spent most of my time in my single in Martin binge-watching Netflix and doing some soul searching at Rockwood Park. At the end of the year my good friend Steve Druan had crossed into Alpha Chi Epsilon and had asked me to live in their townhouse for senior year. I agreed to it, but at the same time, I was concerned being a non-brother in a fraternity house.

My worries were short lived and we started the year off on a good note, having some of the biggest parties I’ve seen at Pace outside of Townhouse Day. Like I mentioned, the core of my friends had graduated, so I basically had to start from scratch. I really opened myself up for the first time in four years and I felt like I finally started to belong. The people that I pigeon-holed and stereotyped really proved me wrong and made me feel foolish for being so closed-minded for so long.

The conclusion to my story leaves me with a bittersweet kind of feeling. I learned a lot in my last year here, things I should have learned a lot earlier. So the moral is that you should allow yourself to meet new people regardless if you “think you have them figured out.” As cliché as it sounds, you should appreciate the time you have left here, it goes a lot quicker than you think. Our future is uncertain, but friends will always be certain. So stop trying to figure it all out at once, because you’ll miss out on some of the best memories. Enjoy yourself and the people you’ve connected with. To quote the John Hughes classic Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

(This part is optional)

Peace bitches,

XOXO Derek Kademian (aka Dereliqua)