My First Day at College

The rain was pounding against my window as I awoke at the ‘ungodly’ hour of seven thirty. It was bad enough that I had to be there for 9 AM. I felt so secure and warm wrapped up in my winter duvet. It was the best feeling in the world. As I finally dragged my self out of the comfort and security of my bed, I felt the cold as I rushed to get a shower.

I didn’t really want to go, but something inside me told me I should; it would be for the best. Today wasn’t just my first day at college; it was the start of a journey. I arrived early, about eight thirty. I’ll always remember that totally lost feeling. I felt as though I was in a jungle, a concrete jungle. The buildings were like the trees and the people were like the wild animals. The jungle seemed to be full of monkeys and other wild animals. All the wild animals seemed to know each other; I felt like I was invading their private space, like on one of those wildlife programs, where the monkeys just stare at the camera, as if to say, “get out of my space.”

I had friends, but they had got better GCSE results, so they had got on a better course and didn’t have to be at college till later on.

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I had friends, but they had got better GCSE results, so they had got on a better course and didn’t have to be at college till later on.

I was scared. Somehow I found my way through the maze, which I knew at Norton College. Reception seemed like a busy place, full of all the wild animals; everyone was standing away from the main desk. I asked the slithery snake behind the desk where connections students needed to be. I was given directions to the drama hall. I passionately hated the word ‘connections’ for many reasons, mainly because when people asked me what I was doing at college I would have to explain what the course was and it made me feel unintelligent. The other people on my course, the people who found the course difficult, only made this worse. As I walked in to the drama hall, I was nervous. These were the jungle animals I would spend the year with. I would have to make friends with them.

They had split the room in half; the intermediate students were put on the left and the connection students were put on the right. The whole of the left-hand side was full. Every seat was taken. A few of the animals from the left-hand side had moved to the right hand side, because it was so full. There were only a few people on the right hand side, so I sat near them.

In the drama hall we had a talk about the college, where to go if we needed help, what was expected of us. The voice droned on for about forty-five minutes. Throughout this talk, people joined my side of the room. This could be good or bad I thought. Good because I wasn’t quite so on my own but bad because I didn’t really like the looks of any of them.

After all the speeches were over, we were given to our new teachers. During this process I felt like I was on a role call. The voice boomed out ‘Linda Thomson’s group, IT Connections’. This was my group. I thought I had to be in this group. He started to read the names of the people that had been condemned to this group. ‘Zahira Beigum’ a sense of relief went through me; I wasn’t the first person called. After Zahira’s name was called she went over to our new teacher.

‘Mark Butterworth’ boomed the voice again. This was me. I hated being second almost as much as I hated being first. I walked over towards our new teacher. I could feel the eyes of a thousand people as I walked across the room. I hated people watching me. I was really paranoid about that sort of thing.

Linda was about 5’6 in height with short brown mousy hair. She had a pleasant face with a kind smile. She was wearing a smart trouser suit. Linda showed our group to our room, which was to be our cell for the year. As we walked down the corridor towards our destination we walked past room after room of sports equipment and sporty looking people.

We were taken up some of the steepest steps I’ve ever been up. Our room was full of computers. You could smell them; you could hear them. I was relieved; I wanted to use computers.

I was only in college for about an hour, filling in forms and answering questions. We only used the computers for the last fifteen minutes, when we were setting up our student account, which involved setting our user name and password. We were given our timetable. I was in the next morning at nine. So I went home, that was my first day of the journey through the jungle.

I started walking home; by this time it had stopped raining. I felt good about my self; I had survived my first day at the jungle known as college. I thought to myself, one down only another three years to go!

Mark Butterworth Page of