Yes, you should befriend that fourth-year
On letting others life experiences inform your own
By AMBER DUHS — alduhs@ucdavis.edu
In elementary school, the age gap between a third-grader and a fifth-grader felt astronomical. Your knowledge of times tables and American history divided social standings and interactions across the playground. But as you grow older, ages and grades become more integrated and less important — first teenagers, then highschoolers and finally adults.
With growing integration come the (not-so) unlikeliest of friendships: age-gaps ranging from a few years to a few decades, all providing their own unique discourse and advice on life, academics and the nichest of topics. University often provides the first taste of these newly natured relationships, as students of all ages are granted the opportunity to meet and mingle through various extracurricular activities.
The nature of your first-year in college is almost entirely freshman-centric, as you live in dorms surrounded by other first-years, take introductory courses and spend every meal at the dining hall. However, the truest of friendships — and, I'd argue, the best advice and life experience you’ll ascertain — will be from your friendships outside of your highly specific age group.
Whether you get along perfectly with a fourth-year you’ve been paired up with for a club or frequent a favorite Teaching Assistant’s office hours, you’ll find yourself influenced by their life experiences in subtle and understated ways. Anecdotes about roommates and class experiences get catalogued into future advice you’ll remember just when you need it, and watching someone who seems to have found the perfect balance between their academic and social life slowly informs your own choices and perspective on adulthood.
While it's easy to fall into the comfortable trap of your closest friends all being from the exact time-space you inhabit, the knowledge gained from age-gap friendships will be among the most valuable and informative experiences you could have.
Maybe for the first time in your life, the advice being given to you is no longer theoretical; it's lived and actively occurring right in front of you. Your upperclassman friend who preaches on the importance of putting yourself out there and ignoring the underlying feeling of embarrassment continuously does just that, giving you proof of their guidance. Your friend at work who assures you confidence is the key to every situation, familiar or not, approaches new experiences assuredly, giving you living-proof it's possible to remain steady even in the unknown.
An old psychology teacher of mine frequently quoted Dan Peña in her lectures, repeating the line “show me your friends, and I'll show you your future.” While it felt cheesy or even a little obvious at the time, she couldn’t have put it better. Your friends and the people you surround yourself with slowly inform your conscious and unconscious decisions: who and what you find important, the way you delegate your time and even your vernacular (we all know the moment you find yourself repeating a word your best friends have been using for weeks, realizing you now all sound the same).
By befriending those with wisdom beyond a first-year dorm or your first job out of high school, you effectively allow yourself to look beyond the present — watching as those around you transform into the adult you too, hope to eventually become.
This concept applies beyond the bubble of university life as well. As you move through jobs and apartments creating a web of relationships and friendships, you’ll find yourself at work connecting with someone's parent on the qualms of raising teenagers — of course you’ll provide a “youthful” perspective — or discussing literature and art with someone's grandparent who happens to volunteer at the same organization you do.
Value lies in people and their experiences, not their age or the walk of life they’re in. Approach each new person the same — as a friend you haven’t quite made yet — and I'm sure you’ll hear the best and funniest stories, be given the best advice you’ll ever get and make the closest of friends.
Written by Amber Duhs — alduhs@ucdavis.edu
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