College Happiness: Find Your People

“You were right.  As soon as Will found his people, he knew which school would fit him.” Mrs. Arcano told me.  Will had graduated from The Williams School a few years back.  He had suffered over which school would fit his quirky personality. Will searched through Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York for colleges where he felt at home. Initially, he was discouraged on his visits because he didn’t feel that he fit in anywhere.

When we met, I told him that at most every college there would be a group of students that could be “his people” and that certain colleges would have larger percentages of students who could fit that category.

So, Will resumed his visits.  He discovered, to his surprise, that UCONN, a place that he thought he definitely would not fit in did have a group of students that could be his people.  It was a smaller percentage than he found at Wesleyan but he realized that any sizable school has enough students to fit all sorts of “people categories”.

Will then found other schools such as Bard, Oberlin, and NYU where he discovered a high percentage of students that suited him. Will finally wound up at Emerson in Boston where he happily hangs out with his people.