Leaving home for college is probably one of the most rewarding experiences anyone will have. It is the time you leave the nest and naively step into a world full of endless opportunities to either make (or break) yourself into anyone you want to be.
What you’ve been thirsting for is finally here. Your ticket away from adult supervision, petty high school nonsense, and 6:00 AM alarms. Your fresh start is about to kick off.
Speaking of such, one of the most memorable years you’ll have in your life will be your first year of college. From tailgates to pre-games, and bar-crawls to frat parties, to all-nighters at the library with your new friends and living off of Jimmy John's, I can guarantee you that your freshman experience will be/was one for the books. For those who have already lived it, here’s a little reminder of how it all went down. For those about to embark on this journey, you’ll thank me later for giving you a heads up on how it will all play out.
1. As you walked into your dorm hall for the first time, you took a look at all the new faces and thought:
2. Then, syllabus week kicked off and your first night out was all like:
4. Some nights, you thought it’d be a good idea to stay in. Your squad insisted on keeping the partying streak going though, but your responsible nature kicked in for a second, confidently turning down their plan of the night like:
5. You attempted to stand your ground several times as they tried to corrupt your good intentions of enjoying a sober night in:
6. But when they all left without you, your FOMO (fear of missing out) overcame you and you spent the rest of the night peeping their Snapchat stories like:
7. As you made more friends, you began giving in and going out more often…and even though it was the same thing every single weekend, it somehow never got old.
8. But as the weekends came to an end and your hangover settled in, you would remember all the work due that following week, which left you saying:
9. As if you didn’t have enough to worry about, each semester you realized that your resolutions to go to class every day/ not let school work pile up/exercise often/ be smart with your money were all a lie, which would leave you in a self-reflecting crisis thinking:
8. "Where did the time go?" You asked yourself this as midterms/ term papers /finals piled up on you and you quickly went into panic mode.
9. But you always tried to justify your lack of time management and poor study habits to others (and yourself):
10. Not only were you completely lost when it came to school, but at some point you also realized you were practically poor for the remainder of the semester.
11. Luckily, your new friends were also making the same rookie mistakes, so you simply embraced your losses together and accepted defeat like:
12. Lets not forget the awful eating habits you developed thanks to dining hall food.
13. Or that one person in your dorm hall that you "just-can’t-even" with:
14. And as the year came to an end and you finally began to make peace with yourself, you’re left unsettled with the thought that it only gets worse from here on out.
15. Regardless of the huge obstacle course freshman year ended up being, you and your friends got through it. Lessons were well learned with no regrets.
Well, maybe some, right?
