First-year Shock: First class

It’s a beautiful morning for a walk to the Farmer School of Business. I leave my hall at 7:40 a.m., perfectly on schedule. As every first-year who does not know where they’re going does, I throw the directions into Apple Maps. I put on my headphones, put on some music and start on my journey.

This is where I encounter my first problem. I can’t look like I have no idea where I’m going by staring at the directions on my phone, but I truly do have no idea where I’m going. I can’t look like the average first-year staring at his phone for directions.

Instead, I open my phone and pretend to change the song while actually glancing at the fastest possible route. After about 15 minutes, I’ve “changed the song” at least four times.

I see Farmer in the distance and change the song one last time, turning off my directions.

I enter Farmer and dodge a couple of fellow unfortunate 8 a.m. class-takers en route. I glance at the map plaques and start down the hallway that looks like it would house room 1023.

I quickly realized I’d made a mistake; the rooms were going up in number and started at 1030.

I’ve gone down the wrong hallway.

I look around to see if anyone will see this horrifically embarrassing blunder. Two other people are there.

I would rather be dead right now.

I start the walk to the other hallway, the one that should have 1023, and continue down until I realize yet another mistake: The room doesn’t exist. Where I thought room 1023 would be is actually the janitor’s office.

I look around to see if anyone is witnessing my confusion. Staring back at me are the same two people I had just seen in the previous hallway.

I would very much rather be dead right now.

Enjoy what you're reading?
Signup for our newsletter

In a desperate hope to salvage the moment, I ask, “What class are you guys going to?”

“Business 102, man!” One of them replies. “You’re going there too, right?”

Thank God.

“Yeah! Do you guys know where 1023 is?”

“Nah, man, we were just following you,” he said. “It looked like you knew where you were going.”

Drew Varney is a first-year from Cincinnati, Ohio, majoring in marketing with a minor in business analytics. He is also a member of the Miami University Fashion & Design club.

varneyat@miamioh.edu