Ah, Fordham University: the recycling bin for Ivy rejects and NYU hopefuls clinging to their last chance to make it in the big city. Students moan about the day they’ll finally get their chance to transfer out of a school notorious for its total lack of spirit and ghosts of lost dreams wandering the halls.

Well, guess what? It’s your fault Fordham is terrible.

I went to a high school that everyone hated. The closest thing we had to school spirit was the spirited loathing every single student had for being there. Trashing the football team, complaining about the teachers and laughing about how unlucky we were to be at Ocean Township Public High School were the things that united us. Maybe I’m subconsciously seeking out something familiar, but I think I landed myself at a college that feels the exact same.

Back in the beautiful state of New Jersey, my county had something called the vocational school program — lucky, intelligent people could opt to take a speciality school’s exam, submit a college-esque application and be lifted right into a high school that catered to their specific interests, such as biology, medical science, engineering and communications, all at the IB level. Instead of being stuck in a basic public high school, those lucky few enjoyed a curriculum centered around a specific career path or talent and all the clout that came with it. These were the Ivys of Jersey Shore high schools, if you will.

I wanted to go to the vocational school for writers and artists. I was not accepted. I was drafted into Ocean Township Public High School with the rest of us who weren’t quite good enough, and spent two years of my life debating if I had a chance to transfer and get out of the second-rate garbage can I was getting an “education” from instead. Every other high-achieving honors chaser in my class felt the same way.

We hated being at Ocean. We hated each other. Then, about a month before graduation, we looked around and realized that we’d wasted our high school years wishing we were somewhere better, when we’d all had the ability to create that culture we craved all along. Who cared if we were in the Communications or MAST or Hi-Tech high schools? If we’d all been just that much luckier or smarter or friendlier with the review board, the people we were stuck with in cut-rate Ocean would have been our classmates anyway. We rejects had even more in common with each other than our luckier peers, being the kind of people to put our hobbies before our homework once in a while.

Lesson learned.

Here is the difference between my underfunded high school and our tragically-mismanaged university. Complain all you want, but we’re all paying to be here. Why in the world would you use that time to hate every second of your existence on this campus, instead of making it a place you want to be?

Yes, I know the campus’s attempts at underclassmen parties and dorm events are kind of cringe, bro. Yes, I know that “STRAIGHT OUTTA FORDHAM” hoodie in the window of our bookstore lurked like a dark spectre for a few months until someone thankfully took it down.

Some things we can’t change. But you can stop talking about how badly you wanted to go to NYU. You don’t go to NYU. You don’t go to Columbia. Sorry to say, but nobody cares that you wanted to go and you didn’t get in.

A culture is determined by its people, my friends. We’re all rejects already. The least we can do is try not to reject each other.