As my first semester of college comes to a close in the upcoming week; I have realized that not everything I was told or thought, happened as I planned, but some came along just as I expected. Here are some thing I have learned and realized in my first semester of college

1. Your coffee addiction increases dramatically

I have to admit, I did see this coming. With the new types of classes and the course getting increasingly difficult I drank up to three cups of coffee a day, minimum. I was jittery all the time and never fell asleep (but what else is new). Coffee seemed to be my savior for papers that were due the next day, but slowly became my enemy when I could not fall asleep until four in the morning. I realized that I should cut down the coffee and go back to my normal routine with only one cup a day.

2. Dining Halls are grosser than what you think

I was warned about this but could not believe that dining halls could be bad, they are just like food courts, right? Maybe it is just my experience but the dining hall dilemma started off well, the first two weeks I did not mind going to the dining hall to eat my meals but as the school year went on, my friends and I did our absolute best to avoid the dining hall! We found that the food became less and less quality since the start of the school year, and everything started to taste horrible and bland to us! None of us were expecting this bad of an experience.

3. You will run out of money, quickly.

I always considered myself to be very good at saving my money. I worked hard over the summer and did not expect to spend my paychecks as fast as I did. I was sadly mistaken. First, I ran out of "flex dollars" that can get you any food on campus that was not in the dining hall. I went on a frenzy of flex when I boycotted the dining hall for awhile and very quickly ran out of flex. Now with taking Ubers, wanting to get school merchandise, and buying necessities I had to really watch how I was spending my money before I went completely broke. Going into college, I thought I would be fine financially and would not have to work over Thanksgiving Break, and wow was I wrong.

4. The college talk never stops

When I was a senior in high school, I could not wait to pick a college and graduate so no one in my family or friends can talk about college again. Once again, I was proven wrong. Now the constant questions are, "What's your major?" and once you answer you get responses like, "Oh really, is that what you want to do?", "I would have thought you were a math major.", "Does that involve a lot of writing?" and then once you get through those rounds of questions it becomes, "Are you passing?", "You need straight A's to get into a good graduate school.", and more. My small talk has been consumed by my college life for way to long. Now, when conversations get like this I just smile and nod to make it go by faster, and be less painful.

5. Napping becomes your best friend.

In high school I never napped and when I did it was very rarely. Now, you can see me napping at every chance I get, in my friends dorm, in my dorm, in class, in the student center, you name it and I have probably napped there. With all the studying and hard work, I never get a good nights sleep. Napping makes my life easier.

With these five realizations, I now know what to expect with the upcoming semesters ahead of me.