At about this time during the semester, first-year students hit “the wall.” Though not a literal wall, it can be no less daunting to face and overcome. For the purposes of this blog post, “the wall” refers to the fact that their level of social interaction or interpersonal relationships between two or more people has reached a peak and, in some instances, has become more than they can handle. Have you hit the wall? Let’s use sociological key terms to find out.
When a person starts a new endeavor like college, their position or rank within the social system, i.e., social status, is relatively low. The term freshman means novice or newcomer and describes those with less experience or social status than others in the institution. For the vast majority of students, their place at the college or university is based on achieved status and earned social status based on merit. They earned their place at their school because of their effort and hard work in high school. This is in contrast to ascribed status, assigned social status based on characteristics such as sex, race, and age. While people often assume that affirmative action admissions considering race and sex are examples of ascribed status, legacy admission based on family heritage or financial donation also qualifies. Regardless, most first-year students are in the same boat. They are new on campus and need to transition from operating in a family and high school scale primary group, intimate, face-to-face, long-lasting associations, to the large-scale, impersonal, task-focused, and time-limited associations or secondary group of college.
Part of the transition from primary to secondary groups involves carving out a niche of friends and associates. This usually means joining social groups comprising two or more individuals connected by common bonds and shared social relations. Academic, cultural, artistic, and political clubs are examples of social groups. Others include fraternities and sororities, sports teams, and professional organizations. However, joining these groups comes with a price. While there might be nominal (or not so nominal!) group dues, membership often comes with a social role and expected patterns of behaviors for specific statuses and positions. For some, this could mean taking on a position in the organization like president or events coordinator, but at the very least, there is the expectation that you will attend meetings and participate regularly.
