College Students' Genuine?

Question:

Do you feel like people at college are fake and pretentious and afraid of being who they are?

My Reply:

I think people in college are learning new things about who they are, in ways that they never knew themselves to be.

Remember, most kids going to college have lived all their lives at home, and are now suddenly living away from home, in a totally new surrounding, new rules, new people, new experiences, new way of going to school (for example, you can call yourself in sick to class, no parent or note needed), and thus often go into shock of some sort. It's like they have to find their identities all over again, only now they're away from everything they know and can relate to.  I also notice that a lot of college students experiment with things they didn’t (or wouldn’t) do back home.  This could be for the same reasons.

I notice also that a lot of college students, because of what I mentioned, often lose themselves in college.  College doesn’t always have a good culture to become immersed into.

So if they're fake, then it may be a survival-thing for getting people to like them and put them into a new comfort-zone.  If they’re afraid of who they are, then it may be because they don't really know this side of themselves, and they're afraid of finding out, or they're learning something about themselves that they don't like.

---Pastor Andy