The first couple of months of college for freshmen are filled with new experiences that are exciting, terrifying, fun, and stressful all at the same time. Sometimes it seems difficult to balance all the new changes, but there are several things that one can learn when starting college.

1. The first few weeks of college will feel like a bizarre summer camp filled with frat parties, RA meetings, syllabi, suitemate slumber parties, and a million introductions. There is so much excitement that you just:
   
   
2. And then one day it hits you that your parents aren’t coming to pick you up and this is your life now.
3. You will find yourself frequently answering the question, “Where are you from?”
4. And “What’s your major?”
5. And “What year are you?”
6. Until you start to wish you could just walk around with all the answers taped to your forehead so people will stop asking.
   
   
7. Your first laundry room experience will feel both empowering and terrifying as you question your eagerness to be an adult while trying to separate your whites from your darks.
   
   
8. You will also learn the frustration that is waiting for someone to empty their clothes out of the washer or dryer when all the other ones are taken.
   
   
9. The freedom you feel in the first couple of weeks makes you want to shout from the rooftops that you are an adult and you love it.
   
   
10. But then one weekend you will suddenly crave your (larger-than-a-twin-XL) bed from home and your parents’ cooking, and the homesickness you never thought you would have becomes very real.
    
    
11. And you will miss your dog. A lot.
12. So much that whenever you see a dog on campus your first instinct is to run to it and give it love because you miss your furry cuddle buddy.
    
    
13. You will come to learn the hard way that the study-at-the-last-minute-possible attitude you had in high school is not even close to being possible in college.
14. There will come a point when you feel like you are drowning in papers, midterms, and projects, and you may begin to question your own sanity. So you just:
    
    
15. And you learn that it’s okay because everyone else is feeling that way, too.
16. But with the help of some coffee and a few (or too many) Netflix study breaks you will eventually leave the library feeling slightly more confident in your academic abilities.
    
    
17. If you’re lucky, you and your roommates start to become a little family and actually refer to your dorm room as “home.”
    
    
18. You will have interesting professors, and you will have dry and boring professors.
19. And you will soon learn to regret registering for that 8 a.m. class because you sit there like:
    
    
20. You will learn that it’s actually socially acceptable to eat alone if you want to, and it’s wonderful.
21. Before you know it, your new friends become your new family and college becomes your new home away from home.
    
    
22. And you can’t wait to see what’s in store for you over the next four years.