Freshmen Study

7:10 A.M.: People still have sleepies in their eyes and faces as pale as ghosts. Everyone drags their feet through the halls, eyes glazed over, trying to just make it to their lockers and then to class. People are just starting to wake up and the noise level in the hall is not painful, yet. Down the hall a group of people don’t seem to care that it is still 7 o’clock in the morning and people just got out of bed a mere 30 minutes ago. They are all shrieking and laughing at something that no one else cares about and chattering at a louder level that is almost torture to the human ear at this time in the morning. All the 50 or so people in that hallway whip their heads around at the exact same moment to stare down the people who are making such a ruckus. The group seems to like the fact that they are getting noticed but they don't seem to care that these people are staring at them because right now they are completely annoyed at them. No one can stop glaring at this group because it is obvious to everyone that because they are all dressed similarly, act the same way, and are all minuscule, that this obnoxious group of people are freshmen. Just before we can't take anymore, we are all saved by the bell.

7:35 A.M.: Everyone waits patiently for the teacher to give instructions for the lesson that day. The teacher looks at us with a smirk on her face then she explains the lesson for today, “OK class, today we are going to be studying Solomon Asch’s experiment. Soon we are going to go down to get freshmen from their study halls to be our experimenters.” Everyone was whispering now and getting in heated conversations. We were going to have a fun class today, we were going to observe the actions of freshmen and see how much of an effect that upperclassmen have on them. I was one of the two students to pick three boys and three girls to be our experimenters. When we went downstairs to the classroom for volunteers, the student’s eyes widened and they nearly jumped out of their seats to be the first one’s to raise their hands and get picked. Then we led them upstairs to our class, all the while hearing whispers brush past our ears, “I’m nervous now.” “What are we supposed to do?” The person next to me cracks a smile at me and I grin back at our inside joke. When we arrive at our room, we send in the three girls to join us first and then the boys after them. Our experiment is to see if people will conform even if they know that the other people in the group are obviously wrong. The girls walked in the room with their heads slightly down, fixing their hair and the boys came strutting in, their heads held high like they were very confident. They sat down in one of our three groups. They would not make eye contact with anyone in the group and they wouldn't stop fidgeting. When we went around the group asking certain questions, my classmates said the wrong answers. We wanted to see if the freshmen would say the wrong answer too and give into peer pressure. When it was the freshmens turn, they mumbled and cleared their throats before answering. We could tell how nervous they were or intimidated by us by how they were playing with their hands or looking around the room.

8:10 A.M.: Everyone of the freshmen conformed during at least one of the questions. One boy even conformed 75% of the time. The freshmen were debriefed on the purpose of our experiment. Once they understood that they had all done the wrong thing (according to the experiment) their faces were priceless. A couple of the freshman's faces turned a bright cherry red, some hid their faces in their hands, and the one that conformed 75% of the time blamed his mistakes on the fact that he didn't understand the directions. After the freshmen were escorted back to their study hall, my classmates discussed the behavior of the freshmen. Their eagerness in the beginning had shifted to embarrassment by the end of the experiment.

After all the experiences I have had with freshmen, from being one to my brother becoming one and having to be in the same halls with them at school, this years experiences have changed my perspective on freshmen. I know we were all freshmen at some point in our lives (most of us will be freshmen twice), but I still can't help an annoyance toward them. In groups, they walk turtle speed in the halls, they strut like they own the school, and to get noticed they talk loud enough so that you can hear them on the other side of the school. The freshmen are infuriating in groups, but as individuals, most of them are well grounded and know their limits as high-school freshmen. Like we observed in our experiment, they are normally nervous and intimidated, which they should be because they are new to the school. After these freshmen move on to be sophomores, they will be more down to Earth and understand why upperclassmen find freshmen so annoying. The cycle of the freshmen continue when new freshmen join the school and the old freshmen make snide comments about them.