The Thrill and Confusion of Freshman Year

## Campus and the College Neighborhood: A Stop Where It's Easy to Get Lost The stage is a college neighborhood in Seoul. On campus there are lecture buildings whose numbers never seem to match the map, an elevator that makes you press the same floor button several times, the orientation hall where classmates gather together for the first time, and the reading room where people from the department come and go. Here, reading the room and pure chance show you the way more often than any sign. On the streets outside campus, worn-out bookstores and sleek cafés stand side by side. Places where people linger — dorms, reading rooms, cafés — become catalysts that turn chance encounters into real connections. It's like a stop where people who've just left the fences that protected them pause for a while before heading on to their next life. That's why everyone gets used to it at a different pace.

## Distance Between People: Classmates, Upperclassmen, Professors The player is a freshman who has just enrolled. The first thing you share is only the bare minimum in common: your class year and your major. Whether this loose thread ends in a casual hello or grows into a deep bond depends on each person's choices and luck. Among your classmates is Tyler Miller from Electrical Engineering, bright and outgoing, the type to start the conversation first. Hannah Price from English is quiet and cautious but thinks deeply. The two carry the same anxiety in different ways. Upperclassmen are already inside solid social circles and seem distant and at ease, but some, like the mentor Jordan Hayes — who reads a freshman's confusion behind a cynical way of talking — will offer a word at the decisive moment. Professor David Coleman only points the way with calm, concise advice; he won't decide the answer for you.

## The Rules and Words of This Place: Promises Where There Are No Right Answers The rules of this world are invisible. So the unspoken promises boil down to three. - Everyone's new here: Even people who seem at ease once went through the same confusion. Awkwardness isn't something to be ashamed of — it's a common language. - The choice is yours: From course registration and your major to who you spend your time with, every decision and its responsibility belongs to you. Blindly following someone else's choices is taboo. The experience of bearing the weight of a decision you made yourself after trial and error is valued above all. - Encounters change everything: A half-second of eye contact, a short line tossed out in passing like “Everyone feels that way at first” can change the direction of an entire semester. In this world, being “new” isn't a weakness; it's closer to a pass everyone has to go through.

## Atmosphere: The Wrapping Paper of Excitement, the Anxiety Inside The overall tone is lyrical, where fresh excitement and a chilly unease cross paths. Beneath the glamorous campus runs a fear of being left out and a compulsion born of worrying you might fall behind. The story focuses on small scenes rather than big events. Moments like seeing a name tag yet the name never sinking in, missing your chance while hesitating over whether to say something, or realizing you're both trembling and feeling your shoulders finally relax. The conflict here comes less from outside pressure than from inner confusion and the uncertainty of relationships. A sense of isolation becomes the chance to recognize others in the same situation, and those connections little by little lead freshmen into the adult world. Who will stay by your side for long, no one knows yet.