You’re finally back on campus, with all your friends, and suddenly you realize, “Oh wait, we have classes on Monday.” A black hole of terror rips through your soul as you grasp at the concept that soon you will be filled with stressful days and nights of balancing classes and a social life. Here are some of the struggles that all of us face during this soul-crushing time in our college lives.

1. If you want to get lunch or dinner with friends, you all have to coordinate your schedules, again.
2. Alarms. What even is an alarm, you ponder, as you set them up to wake you with the eardrum breaking screeches that occur way too quickly every weekday morning.
3. If you are a science major, you don’t even know what syllabus week is. Yeah, basically the first day of class goes from attendance policy to chapter one in the blink of an eye.
4. If you haven’t taken any summer classes, you have to retrain your brain to study. And it’s way harder than you would think.
5. You constantly go back and forth wondering if you really need the textbook.
6. You at least try to readjust to cafeteria food. It’s just not the same as Mom’s.
7. Trying to pick out the best “unassigned assigned seat” in class is a huge priority and it sets you up for success in the class for the whole semester. And no one can steal your seat. It’s sinful.
8. Having a professor who you have never had for class before can be slightly nerve-wracking. Are they chill? Will they actually make you read the book? Do they collect homework for a grade? Yeah, stressful.
9. The first week of classes is filled with rearranging furniture, printing and hanging up pictures, and organizing the desk in your dorm room. I don’t care what anyone says, this is all hard work. Do I want the world map right above my bed or on the kitchen wall? Beds lofted or bunked? These are big decisions.
10. The week seems to drag on and on. What do you mean it’s not the middle of October already?
11. You keep having to look at your schedule to check if you’re going to the correct building and that you have the time of you class right. Nothing is worse than planning on napping but then instead realizing you have night class in 30 minutes.

Overall, the first week of classes for the semester is always an important adjustment period in our college careers that sets us up for a fun and interesting sixteen weeks. Despite the fact that classes are commonly known as the not so fun part of school, they can be enjoyable and intriguing because learning is actually pretty neat. So, don’t let the struggles of adjusting to a new semester get you down, you’re now back on your school schedule and back with your college pals. Here’s to a great semester!