Hello, and welcome back to Conversations with Karla! In case you missed it, last week, we met a member of the Alpha Kappa Lambda chapter here at UConn and heard his thoughts on how social media depicts fraternities. This week I met with Jamie Gugliotti, a sixth-semester speech, language and hearing sciences major, to talk about the “right” way to do college.
Gugliotti spent her first year of college at a small school in Massachusetts. She explained how she couldn’t properly decide what college to attend because of the effects of the pandemic, such as limited campus tours. Initially, she was unsure what to study, so she became an elementary education major. She said that her mom followed this track, so it was familiar to her. However, by the end of that September, she knew that being a teacher was not in her cards.
Gugliotti quickly realized that she wanted to be a speech therapist. Unfortunately, the school she was attending did not offer a speech program, and ultimately, she was not happy at the institution. “When I was initially applying to colleges, I didn’t think as much into things that would bother me… It was a small school, I’m not a small school person,” Gugliotti said.
Gugliotti didn’t apply to many schools when she decided to transfer. She said that after touring UConn for the first time, she understood what people meant by “you just kind of know.” She enjoyed the close proximity to home, the number of opportunities to be involved on campus and knowing people from her hometown to ease the transition.
Another factor that contributed to Gugliotti’s decision to transfer was that she felt like social media was painting a picture of what college life should be like that she wasn’t experiencing herself. She said that she thought transferring would completely eliminate this feeling of missing out, but although it’s lessened, it hasn’t totally disappeared. She described how she compared the way she approaches being a UConn student to how other people approach it, which made her feel like she was still missing out on a college experience. “I feel like a lot of people talk about it in high school — comparing yourself to other people on social media. But people don’t talk about it as much in college,” Gugliotti said.
Gugliotti said that she feels the difference between experiencing a fear of missing out on social media in high school versus college is that in high school, people show off one night or one event, whereas in college, people show off their lifestyle. “It feels more competitive,” she said. She also explained how this feeling is intensified by the fact that college students live where they go to school, so they feel like they can’t escape reminders of all they’re missing out on.
One of the methods Gugliotti says she uses whenever she finds she’s comparing herself is reminding herself of how big UConn is. “Every person at UConn gets to experience it in a completely different way. Just because I’m not experiencing it in the same way as other people doesn’t mean I’m doing it wrong,” she said.
Gugliotti noted how based on what she’s seen on social media, people create an image of the “right” way to do college by showing how you have to be everywhere all at once in order to enjoy it. She explained how UConn is such a big school with so many different things going on that people should feel free to individualize their experience here.
That’s all for this week’s Conversations with Karla! See you next week when we’ll meet a new student to discuss a new social media topic.