To all the high school seniors out there getting ready to graduate and go off to college, congratulations! There's a part of me, as a college senior getting ready for graduation as well, that's jealous of your dorm room shopping. But before you get to campus in the fall, there are a few things you should know that no one ever told you about college life.
10. You get really good at moving.
Moving in and out of your freshman dorm is the first time you'll move in college, but definitely not the last. If you're lucky, you'll move into an apartment sophomore year and stay there for the rest of your time in college.
Odds are, though, that you'll probably move at least one more time. I've moved six times: into a new dorm or apartment each year, into an apartment in Seattle where I did an internship, and into an apartment in Italy where I studied abroad ... these last two definitely count as moving, based on the amount of stuff I had to bring with me or buy when I got there.
9. The friends you have freshman year may not be the friends you have senior year.
I made the best friends my freshman year, and I kept a lot of them my sophomore year. Dorm life is the best because you live so close together and see each other all the time.
But as school gets harder and you get more involved in your own major or move off campus, it can be hard to keep in touch with all of your friends. Your best friends from freshman year may not be your friends sophomore year, and your friends from junior year may not be your friends senior year.
This seems impossible since you're all on the same campus, but it happens. It's not like high school, where you're all in the same classes for four years. It's different and kind of weird.
8. Sometimes school isn't the most important thing.
Had you told me four years ago that I'd be telling this to incoming freshmen, I wouldn't have believed you. I was the kid in high school who got straight As and never did anything after school if I had too much homework.
But in college, you realize sometimes there are more important things, and in 10 years you won't remember that you forgot to edit your paper and got points off for it. However, you will remember that night you spontaneously went downtown to see that band playing on a Tuesday night.
Work hard to get good grades, but don't forget to live college up while you can. You only get four years.
7. Changing your major sucks.
Tour guides like to make changing your major sound like the easiest thing ever and like it has no consequences.
This is false. I've never changed my major, but I know people who have, and I didn't declare my major until my second semester freshman year. All the classes I took in the fall? None of them counted to my new major. And all those classes my friends took for their previously declared major? Same story.
Definitely, change your major if it's what you want to do! But don't be fooled, it's not all rainbows and butterflies.
6. It's also the worst four years of your life.
Everyone says college is the best four years of your life. Most of the time, it is. But with the really good times come the bad, and I wish someone had told me this before I got here.
College life changes fast. Like, 0 to 60 in .2 seconds fast. One minute everything is great, the next, it all seems to be falling apart. It's just how it goes. (Especially around graduation, when everything is changing and you're equally thrilled and terrified.)
5. Your friends become your family.
For most high school seniors, college life is the first chance you get to be out on your own in a new place away from your family. While I knew this going into college, I didn't realize what it meant as far as how my relationships with my friends would change.
Suddenly my sister and my mom and dad weren't there to comfort me when I was sad, calm me down when I was freaked out or laugh with me when something great happened. But my friends were.
It was kind of weird at first, opening up on such a "family level" with my new friends. But after a while, it just made me realize how amazing they were (and how grown up I felt making friends in a new city where I hadn't known anyone just a few months before). Suddenly, I had a home away from home and a family in a new place. Pretty cool!
4. Advisement sort of feels like the blind leading the blind sometimes.
Maybe this is more of a big school thing, but at times, it feels like your advisor knows about as much as you do. She has so many students to advise, it's completely understandable that sometimes mistakes are made, but rarely is it not frustrating. Especially the closer you get to graduation.
3. There's a difference between your real friends and your class friends.
It's sort of like high school, where you were really good friends with someone in your class but didn't hang out outside of school. Same thing in college. There will be those people you see all the time in your classes and clubs and events for your college, but outside of those, it's hard to relate to them and hang out in an everyday way.
This wasn't something I expected for some reason and had to learn the hard way.
2. Not going Greek can be a bigger deal than they make it out to be.
This also probably depends on your school's size and location. But if you go to a big school in the South, odds are your tour guides will give you the "Greek life only makes up 25 percent of our student population" line. But what they don't tell you is how that 25 percent seems to run the school's social scene at times.
I didn't go Greek. You don't have to go Greek to have friends and a social life and go to parties by any means, but at some point, you will have "Greek life envy." When they have such cool events, it's only natural.
1. Graduation is bittersweet.
Everyone tells you to enjoy college because it goes by fast, and they're right.
While high school graduation was exciting, and you couldn't wait to get to college, it's not exactly that way when you get ready to graduate college. It's a bit more daunting: no more school, it's finally the real world. And while you really can't wait to finally get out there and do what you've been in school for four years preparing to do, it's sad to leave. All of your friends are going different places, and while you'll keep in touch, it's bittersweet.
Live up your college days. They really are amazing.
