Here it is...the end of yet another academic year. Can you tell me how it happened?

Wasn't I just staring up at the ceiling while laying on my new bed, wondering what the future held? Wasn't I just putting up pictures of my high school friends, worried about how I was going to be able to talk to them every day like I used to?

Wasn't I just hugging my family goodbye, holding them tightly right before releasing them to move on to one of the biggest steps to independence I ever made?

I didn't know what the year had ahead of me but now looking back...I would never have guessed the 15 realities that unexpectedly made their way onto my path:

1. Your high school schedule seems impossible now.

How did you ever manage to wake up at 6 A.M., have nine classes in a day, then have sports and clubs and homework...only to start all over again the following day?

2. Laptop stickers have never been so important.

It's like a label for your identity. Every sticker somehow is supposed to show someone who you are, even though half are the ones you get for free at any college fair. Regardless, laptops everywhere are covered with a person's life story someway, somehow.

3. You are not the same person you were senior year.

You might have thought you knew yourself by the end of last year. You might have thought that you still have yet to find yourself and college will be the answer. In any case, whether or not you do find yourself in this new environment, you have changed. You have grown. Every new experience made you bloom further up — so crazy.

4. Never in your life have your meals been so unbalanced.

Kraft Mac n Cheese for dinner? One meal a day because you ran out of meal points? No meals but snacks throughout the day with cereal for dinner? Not having the ability to remember the last time you ate fruit? Welcome to college!

5. Your decisions will surprise even you... the person making them.

You might think you know what you want. You might think you have set up your life journey and expectations for college. But you will prove yourself wrong in almost every department. You will quit things you thought you loved. You might change your major though it was one you wanted your whole life. You might let go of friends you once relied your whole world on. You will surprise yourself... and often.

6. You are not going to be happy every day.

They say "This is the best four years of your life." But not every day is the best. Not every day will you be ready to take on the world, inspired, and free. Some days you just want to be back in the high school cafeteria next to your besties or back in your car, blasting music while driving your friends around town. It's normal.

7. No one could have prepared you for your experiences.

There are many high school movies out there warning you that there will be lockers, mean teachers, girls who are full of themselves, guys who need to grow up... but all movies surrounding college only show college parties. Now that might be a part of college, but no movie warns you that no person has the same college life as your specific experience. What you choose to do with your time, the opportunities you find— they are so unique to you, it's like the universe catered them specifically for your arrival. Your friends, the get-togethers, the midnight laughter, the people you meet unexpectedly...

8. Admit it or not... you are in a bubble.

Never again in your life will you be living in such a bubble where only people your age are always around you, where clubs and organizations are led and run by students— where you feel like an adult but you really aren't. Not yet, anyway.

9. You will never be alone.

Some find it a good thing, others don't. But in college, it's so tough finding alone time. To just sit somewhere without people around you. Besides the lucky few with single rooms, you will always have a neighbor right across your bed. You will be in the library and everyone will be there too. You might be eating alone in the dining hall, but there is everyone else... eating too. That was the hardest part for me, finding time to just be with me.

10. You realize it's so freeing to just not care about others' judgment.

I learned this from a young age, but the second you stop caring what people think about you, you're free. That's it. You live how you want, you are happy how you want to be, and you are free to just be free and be yourself— unapologetically. And in college, you see that having that mentality...you can really make the time here, your memories, entirely your own.

11. You will meet some of the best people in the most random places.

You can be online at a Thai place and a guy from the Netherlands will chat your ear up. You can be on the bus and the girl next to you compliments your ring and the next thing you know, you're getting coffee every week. You might be in a lecture hall, walk down several steps and see that one person you've seen in your club but never spoke to has a free seat next to them. Now, every Insta post has them tagged.

12. Your taste in almost everything will change.

Your music, your style, your taste in friends, your taste in guys/girls, your taste in food... it all changes.

13. You get close to people, so quickly.

The friends you used to make... it could take a year or two before you feel like you can tell them anything and everything. But in college, because of the bubble you're in, your friends are always a ten-minute walk away or maybe even right down the hall. And you talk. And you get close. By the second week of knowing them, you're sharing your deepest, darkest secrets and fears (yes, it's that serious).

14. You learn more outside your classes from your experiences.

College isn't just about the GPA or the classes. For some, yes, it's a big part. But the best memories— the best friendships and people you meet, the best professors you grow close to, or the best moments you find yourself feeling truly alive—it's not in lecture or cramming for an exam. It's looking up at the sky while crying tears from hysterical cackling. It's pulling an all-nighter for no reason with your best friends. It's going on a service trip or volunteering for the community. It's in you, in your life, at its best.

15. The time goes fast and slow, all at once.

In the moment, you feel like your midterms will never end and that finals are far, fare away. Next thing you know, you're saying goodbye to the friends that have become your family here.