College is a special time in everyone’s life. We move away from home and start a new life of independence and our journey to adulthood. Sure it’s scary, most of us have absolutely no idea what we’re doing. A few months before college started, we were still sitting by the teacher’s seating chart and raising our hands asking to go to the bathroom.
Our first year of college is basically high school revamped, where we start to get used to the idea that the rules of high school and the freedom of childhood just don’t apply to us anymore. We make a ton of weird mistakes that we totally regret in our freshman years. Then we wish we could go back, redo it and not make total fools of ourselves. Here are 11 things I wish I knew before I had started my first year.
1. No matter how long you’ve been together or how strong your bond is, big changes create struggles for relationships — especially long distance ones.
2. Wearing your lanyard around your neck doesn’t make you look cooler than everyone else; it makes you look like a freshman.
3. In the beginning, everyone seems to know everyone. Don’t get discouraged; there are plenty of people in the same position as you.
4. The friends you make during welcome week don’t necessarily have to be your friends for the whole year, and that goes for the rest of your college career too. Friends come and go. In the end, you’ll realize who your real friends are. In the meantime, make good memories with good people.
5. Just because you graduated at the top of your high school class, doesn’t mean you’ll also be at the top of your college class. Maybe you will be and maybe you won’t. It’s OK if you’re not!
6. With all the excitement of a new school with new people, homesickness is still a thing — your family and friends back home probably miss you more than you think. Call home every once in a while.
7. Apartment hunting — especially with big groups — is a huge pain. Start early (like late November) to ensure you’re all content with a home in IV.
8. It’s OK to not graduate in four years or less. Getting classes is hard and the chances of needing to retake a few of them are high. Nevertheless, staying an extra quarter or two isn’t such a bad thing. After all, the purpose of going to college is to graduate and get a degree — not necessarily to get out of there once your four years are up.
9. Minds change. You don’t have to stick with the major you entered with. The thing about taking general education courses is that sometimes they make you realize that you have a passion for something other than your original major and that’s just fine.
10. It’s a safe place here. People don’t judge you for little things that others might have before college; you’ll meet tons of different people with totally different beliefs, personalities and interests. They’ll all accept everyone for who they are (or at least, mostly). So if you want to take your old teddy bear to college with you, then do it.
11. You are your own person here — own it.
