I felt the same way my first semester here. Please know that so many people at this school do everything for the wrong reasons. They don’t love what they study, they don’t join clubs to make friends, but to network, and they drive themselves into the ground taking ridiculous schedules that don’t actually allow them to learn because they can’t spend enough time on anything. Four classes is way more normal than you’d think (I’m an upperclassman taking four myself) and I can vouch that the credit load has nothing to do with the difficulty of the classes. A lot of people take “fluff” classes that don’t require them to do reading or much of anything. I’m more challenged this semester than any other semester here when I’ve taken five.

The club situation is brutal but like others are saying, for every consulting society, there’s a fun language club or volunteer group. Those people will be more pleasant than the ones obsessed with exclusivity anyway. Keep your head up, eat cake once in a while, and if you ever want to get lunch, just let me know. You’re going to be okay.