Tale of Two Campuses (I) - Shock of generational divide

It seems true but scary that it's impossible to physically leave Princeton. I thought that after I graduated I won't be back for months but in less than two months, I hopped on campus on at least four occasion already!

But there is another campus that I have to dip my feet in - Columbia. But oh lord they are campuses on different planets.
While immersing myself in the Columbia world, I have to pretend to be mature so I can fitin witheverybody is in the 25-30s range. Most people have had years of work experience and are all well mannered, dressed, and yes scarred by the competitive, life or death working world. As someone freshly out of college, it's natural to be intimidated.
#1: They are more mature...with more life stories, experiences to share
#2: They are excited to be back in school...unlike me still completely burned out by Princeton.
Yeah grad school in that kind of environment is Princeton on steroids.

I was at one of their happy hour event on Wednesday, and it was amazing chatting with all these working professionals about going back to school. Many of them with impressive years working in the i-banking, consulting, law firms industries. Plenty of international students as well (50% of the class). The first thing they ask you is where have you been working, and I begrudgingly admit that I'm a fresh graduate. So it'll be a very interesting/bemusing experience in the next month meeting all the classmates.

At Princeton, I found myself interacting with a group of class 2014ers - students who were selected for the inaugural bridge year program in which they take a year off to work for a NGO in one of the four countries - Serbia, India, Peru and Ghana. These kids were obviously brilliant, but also very boisterous and somewhat immature - something I forgot that existed still in the first years of college. That starkly reminded me how much we, as seniors as recent graduates have been scarred by the Princeton life - how "growing up" during college years means becoming more dull, and frankly, less spontaneous/interesting/funny person. Which is sad of course but it is the reality imposed by the restraints of the society....because after people have been working in the professional world for a while (through summer internships during college), they have to act professionally/conform to the standards of the workplace/society and all that and be politically correct, mature, responsible....all of that take away the youthfulness/spontaneity of your memorable childhood years.

Just sitting in the common room overhearing conversations of incoming freshman was
amusing enough. The sports teams arrive earlier than the rest and so I was in the same common room as the swim team when they were hanging out. They completely shattered my previous stereotypical views of the "jocks" of Princeton even. At first they were gesturing and spewing out phrases that were incomprehensible to me - idiosyncratic languages only understood by their teams. But then all of them became very serious and delve into a deep philosophical conversation involving classes/major/career choice - and at that point I really wanted to chime in. And they were flying words like John Nash, taking multivariable calculus, investment banking internships, comparing the different ivy league students...these are like the cookie cutter convos of supposedly the nerds of nerds.

Of course I've had intellectually brilliant athlete friends, but since I was never an athlete, I thought that they don't have that kind of philosophical convos when they gather. Now after eavesdropping on their internal bread-butter day/day conversation, I was impressed and have a new found respect for these hardworking athletes.
In the end, when an athlete started playing the Coldplay on piano and started singing, that was even more brilliant (all these crazy kids with a multitude of physical/mental talents). And when they approached me, I was mistaken as one of them - incoming 2013er.

For the 2014ers..we orchestrated some icebreaker events for them including twister, apples/apples and asking scandalous anonymous questions. That was even more amazing to watch these joyous, energetic kids with unsatiable imagination, talent and curiosity.