I’ve said on many occasions that the University of Massachusetts is an excellent place to live and study. After a year of living here I think that statement is correct. One of the things I probably missed out on saying, though, is that it’s also an interesting place to be in its own right. Well, you know, it’s interesting for better or for worse when you can say, “Hey, the riot police are here again.” This is a place where over 30,000 people congregate every day to do all sorts of things, academic and otherwise, and there is something new happening every day. When you take a moment to soak in the energy and pace of this university, it’s really incredible.

What amazes me most is the contrast inherent in daily life here. I can spend a late night at work in a microbiology lab and hear the siren of a fire truck responding to the alarm at a frat house – again. I can hear a Mass by J.S. Bach live on a Saturday night, and then wake up to see empty beer bottles strewn across campus on a Sunday morning. After a semester’s worth of serial theft, we live in fear of ever leaving our things out of sight for more than a minute. But I’ve also received more help and kindness here from complete strangers than I ever could have guessed. What’s possibly most amusing is that, depending on where you are on campus, you can either sit in on a 400-level astrophysics lecture or watch statistics students struggle with the term ‘standard deviation’ a week before finals.

This whole situation immediately reminds me of Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities.” It’s not very hard to draw some parallels between the two. It’s a combination of completely different sets of priorities and ideals. This place holds the highest of mankind’s aspirations and a whole lot of things you’d rather not see on Facebook tomorrow morning.

Universities, and UMass in particular, are strange places where these two completely different worlds collide and intermingle with such intensity that you wonder how they can exist without annihilating each other. Life in a place like this lets you see humanity at some of its best and worst points, alternating between the most intelligent and most irresponsible people you’ll ever meet. You can simultaneously experience the refined poise of a violinist and the earth-shattering sound of a subwoofer coming from a juiced-up Honda Civic.

One of the most surprising things you’ll find here, though, is that the line between these two polar opposites is not nearly as well-defined or as consistent as you would expect it to be. Although there are some people who hold fast at either end, the majority of us are stuck in the gray area, keeping one foot on either side of the line and trying to chart a path for ourselves, day by day. For the most part, we’re just trying to juggle all the options this environment presents us, get through to tomorrow, and maybe live a little somewhere along the way.

I’ve been trying to decide how this school guides us for a while now. Sometimes it’s difficult to see whether it’s trying to beat our brains into enlightenment or give us a crash course in faking your way through an education. After some time here, I’ll hazard a guess. I think it’s teaching us to mix and match from all the parts of life we see here and to find our own way through.

I’ve heard this called “fluency in living” before, and I’ve grown to like the phrase. Dealing with such a diverse environment forces you to take the good with the bad, and make what you will of it. You become so fluent in weighing your options and making choices that by the time you leave this place, well, you’ve seen just about everything you’ll have to deal with in life. The faculty here isn’t working to stuff some dry, incomprehensible nonsense in your brain – they’re working mainly to help you on your way and craft your life into something meaningful, provided you’re willing to reach out for their help.

This “Tale of Two Colleges” isn’t so much a contradiction as a whole spectrum of possibilities handed to us over our four years here. Whether or not we tread carefully in these years is a different story entirely.

Whoever said the most important lessons you learn in life happens outside the classroom was definitely right; living and working with the thousands of people here has taught me more than any class I’ve taken here. I’m sure there’s a lot more to it than this – but these are the reflections of a freshman. In fact, I might even be glad that I don’t understand it completely just yet. That’s what I have another three years for.

Artur Wysoczanski is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].