Good morning, Jumbos! It's a beautiful day in Medford: The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the Malden is like a mirror. (In a few short weeks, of course, this will be because the river will have frozen over.)
Today, you take your first tentative steps towards yet another four years of education, during which you can expect to discover that anything and everything you were told by the admissions committee or whatever yahoo gave you your tour is completely incorrect. You will probably begin to wonder whether we at Tufts simply make things up. (We do.)
First of all, you will not get a chance to try every extracurricular program we have to offer. Instead, you will spend your time wandering confusedly across the campus, desperately asking amused upperclassmen whether "Eaton Hall" and "Eton Hall" are the same building, and where the hell they are. And that, of course, is assuming you haven't wandered off campus entirely, in which case you are somewhere on Bromfield Road knocking frantically on every door you can find and asking the occupants whether they have ever heard of Tufts University. (They haven't.)
When you finally reach your first class, you will be surprised to notice that the professor doesn't actually seem to care whether you attend lectures or not. You will initially choose "not," spend some thoroughly pleasant afternoons in your dorm room playing "Halo" with a kid you met down the hall, and then find shortly before your Classics midterm that you have no idea what this "Inferno" business is, nor why Dante chose to write so much about it.
Waking up for that 8:05 a.m. molecular biotechnology course will appear to be a bit more challenging than it seemed when you first picked your classes out and were absolutely sure that molecular biotechnology was exactly what you were interested in.
You will wonder how anyone else can possibly have the time to go out on Friday nights, let alone Tuesdays (which has become the new Thursday and has been replaced by Mondays and Wednesdays, though only after alternate Sundays).
Finally, you will collapse in a heap on your carpet and bite down on a leather belt until the shaking subsides.
BUT.
Then second semester will arrive. Your parents will forgive you for the Cs you received first semester, as all of our parents once did. (With the exception of the parents of my roommate, who is still coasting at a cool 4.0. If you see him, congratulate him)
You will find yourself calling eight different people every night to let them know you are heading out to dinner and being not even remotely surprised when every single one of them joins you.
Motorists driving through campus will ask you how to get to Latin Way, and you will happily and confidently direct them on their way (though you will realize moments later that you actually pointed them towards Teele Street, which is in the other direction).
Fraternities or sororities will go out of their way to recruit you, writing for a paper or trying out for a sport or auditioning for a play will begin to interest you, and you will wake up one day and find that you have a million things to do, every single one of which you love.
The point is, fellow Jumbos, we have all been where you are today. Since 1852, eager and apprehensive freshmen have glanced around with equal parts excitement and foreboding and wondered what each of these 1200 other students got on their SATs, and whether they might want to get some lunch later on.
Yet we have all made it. There are thousands and thousands of accomplished Tufts University graduates, and though you may scarcely be able to believe you are capable of accomplishing what these other fine men and women have accomplished, I am able to say with pride that, well, you are.
That is why you are here: You are here today ready to go out and make us all proud. Congratulations on being here, enjoy your time with us, and best of luck.
You're going to love it.
