<lways thought movies like “Animal House” were very amusing, but also completely made up. They were like the Hogwarts of colleges, and the ideas they left in high schoolers brains made them wish they had never learned to dream of crazy drunken debauchery. Sure, we at Carleton had Crack house, and I bet one of its alums will go on to be the real-life John “Bluto” Blutarsky, but its parties will never match those of Delta Tau Chi House. I’m also pretty sure that most Carls are thankful of this fact. When I imagined college I knew that it wouldn’t be like the movies, but I hoped that I would find the same sort of freedom. I hoped that my experiences would be wild and wonderful and a little weird. My greatest fear was that I wouldn’t do anything silly, because only silliness in certain traditional forms would be accepted. I’ve happily learned that Carleton has a proud tradition of silliness, which may seem trivial at first, but it allows Carleton to challenge us in a very non-traditional way.
Being silly doesn’t mean being immature, something that we Carls take to heart. Yes, we work hard, but we also embrace the moments we can act our age and be the kids that we still are. It can be as simple as floating down the Canon, seeing how far the river will take us. Or, it can be as hilarious as breaking into a building at night and stealing the giant bust of Schiller for the purpose of midnight trivia. The wonderful thing about experiences like these that they aren’t thought out…we just do them.
Although Carleton is known for its tradition of academic excellence, the force I see on a daily basis is our ability to not take ourselves too seriously. We understand that freedom is not just about being away from home, but also developing the confidence to figure out what we want out of life. I don’t mean what we want out of our future, but rather what we want out of each day. At Carleton, we are able to develop our own identity, which can be as simple as not questioning ourselves and what our heart tells us to do. We can become comfortable with accepting our silliness of the present, without constantly thinking of when we need to grow up. No one should be like Bluto forever, but maybe being wild now will allow us to find what we are meant to achieve.