College is an exciting time. For the next four years, you’ll be learning new things, exploring new places, and meeting new people. But most importantly, college is the time to figure out what kind of person you want to be. It doesn’t matter who you were in high school. Now is the time when you can finally decide: are you a good guy who we can all count on, or are you some sort of dirty snitch?
This school is more than just an institution of higher education. It’s really an incredible community full of people working on things they are passionate about. Now that you’re here, it’s your job to find out how you fit into that community. You might be more involved with athletics, or maybe you’ll join one of the many theater groups on campus. Maybe you’ll just be busy trying to keep your mouth shut and avoid ruining this great thing we have going. You can really make this place your own, ideally in a way that doesn’t betray the dozens of people who thought you would’ve gotten over this cold feet bullshit by now.
Regardless of what you end up doing on campus, what will matter more than anything are the people you meet here and the friendships you form. You should recognize that some of the people you find in your classes or on your hall will become cherished lifelong friends, while keeping in mind that a true friend would never ask you to wear a wire to one of our gigs, especially after we all trusted you to be cool about this. The friends you make will likely become the most important part of your college experience, although the most important part for you could easily be staying on the good side of a group of people that is entirely capable of exacting revenge from within the confines of a federal prison.
Whatever path you take through college, these will doubtlessly be some of the best years of your life. There are countless people here ready to support you and help you become the best version of yourself, and many more expecting you to not start developing a fucking conscience. You knew damn well what you were getting into when you came here.
I trust that you will take this message to heart as the year gets started. And I think we can both agree that at the end of the day, trust is all that really matters, right?
-MA’19