Who would have thought that a baby Jade succulent would become my absolute worst nightmare?

Let’s rewind to freshman year, where I, naive little Megan, was putting my best foot forward each day of college. Waking up early to put on sparkly eyeshadow, eating a plate of questionable scrambled eggs in the Randall Dining Commons and even grabbing a Starbucks cold brew coffee all before my 8 a.m. Spanish class — basically, I was killing it.

Unfortunately, it was short lived. Everything rapidly deteriorated after I encountered that forsaken succulent. 

After an afternoon of exploring campus with my roommate, we stumbled across a workshop for students to pot succulent plants in order to add some flair to their dorm decor. Intrigued, we joined in and began molding our perfectly pointy succulents into their new habitats with dirt and plant food. 

By the time the one o’clock bell began to chime, the realization hit. We were late. The first time ever in my whole life I had ever been late. Seriously, I am always on time, even for dinner reservations.

We grabbed our succulents and dashed for Doti Hall. While we were sprinting, the soil from our plants began to scatter all over our clothes, and the sweat from the California humidity made my so-called “waterproof” mascara run all over my face. We burst through the classroom’s doors only to be greeted by glares from our professor and classmates. Complete and utter humiliation flowed through my veins, down my cheek, and all over my shirt. 

But, I realized, embarrassing moments are an everyday occurrence. And I’m certainly not the only one on campus who had their fair share of mortifying experiences. Chapman alumna Madeline Humphrey, who graduated in 2021, said moments like this are common and stem from the pressure freshmen put on themselves.

“You don’t want to look childish or embarrass yourself — you want to do everything right, and you have all these expectations for how it’s supposed to be, but it just isn’t that way,” Humphrey said. “You shouldn’t beat yourself up, because it happens to everybody, and most of the time, other people don’t notice. They don’t think about it in six months when you are still thinking about it at 2 a.m. in your bed.”

Humphrey told The Panther about some of her own mishaps on campus, including one story in which she fell down a flight of stairs at Smith Hall during Orientation. 

“If you are able to laugh about it later or laugh about it sooner rather than later, you will brush things off better in the future,” Humphrey said. 

Senior integrated educational studies major Jordan Schochet also encountered a humiliating moment freshman year at her first fraternity party.

“There were two of us that were wearing lanyards with our Chapman ID, and the frat guys came up to us and were like, ‘Oh we can tell you are freshmen,’” Schochet said. “We were trying to be all cool and said we were sophomores, but we were actually freshmen. So, that was kind of funny and embarrassing at the same time.”

Sina Crenshaw, a senior double majoring in television writing and production and psychology, told The Panther a variety of awkward moments she’s experienced during her time at Chapman. Being late to class due to parking in the wrong part of campus was one, but Crenshaw also recounted a party in which she swapped shirts with a random guy there.

“I went to (a) Delta Sigma Pi (D-Sig) party with one of my friends who just rushed, and I actually wanted to switch shirts with some guy,” Crenshaw said. “I spilled colorful stuff on my shirt, and he had a cooler shirt than me. So, I flashed the entire garage of D-Sig boys while I switched shirts with this guy.”

If you’re a freshman reading, there’s something you should know: embarrassing moments are going to happen — it’s inevitable. It may be right when you graduate, or it may be on your first day of school. Regardless, it all contributes to the wonderfully unique story of your college experience. 

“I feel like I am a way more light-hearted person now than when I came into college,” Crenshaw said. “So many things happened and I’ve embarrassed myself so many times. I just had to realize I had to stop being so uptight about it and just experience life.”