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Social Annealing « the jsomers.net blog

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The first two weeks of college are exceptional for a lot of reasons. But there's one phenomenon that stands out. It's as peculiar and as powerful and as rare as magic. [1] I'll call it "social annealing" because it so resembles the process by which metals are heated---their particles freed into a loose homogenous jumble---and then recrystallized. It's the phenomenon whereby college freshmen, having just been ejected from the world they know and loosed upon a campus they don't, mutually decide, in the heat of their eager anxiety, to willingly engage every stranger as a friend. It happens in the dorms, the cafeteria, coffee shops, classrooms, libraries, and just around town: students with no prior connection approach one another and strike up conversations. Everyone tries everyone out. Groups do form, but they're not the kind of groups we're used to---they congeal and dissolve with remarkable ease. So a lone student can approach five others without feeling like he's intruding; two sets o

Social Annealing << the jsomers.net blog the jsomers.net blog. About Subscribe Read More Contact me Social Annealing by James Somers , October 20, 2010 The first two weeks of college are exceptional for a lot of reasons. But there's one phenomenon that stands out. It's as peculiar and as powerful and as rare as magic. [1] I'll call it "social annealing" because it so resembles the process by which metals are heated---their particles freed into a loose homogenous jumble---and then recrystallized. It's the phenomenon whereby college freshmen, having just been ejected from the world they know and

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