Freshman year of college can be the best time of your life and the worst time all at once. For the first time in your life, you are living on your own, in a totally new environment, away from everyone and everything you have known all your life. Freshman year can be an emotional roller coaster of all-nighters writing essays, themed parties, 1 a.m. pizza and Jimmy John's, and late nights in the library, but through all the ups and downs, there are a few things every incoming freshman should remember.
1. College is not high school.
The difficulty of classes and the amount of freedom you have change when you make the transition from high school to college. You must rethink your time management, and there is no one there to make sure you do your homework or get up and go to class.
2. You will get homesick.
No matter how exciting and action-packed your first year of college is, everyone gets homesick. There will be times that you never want to go home, and there will also be times that you want to go home and never want to go back to school. You'll start to miss your family (no matter how much they get on your nerves), your pets, your bed that isn't twin sized, and your room that you don't have to share with someone. Being homesick doesn't mean that you didn't pick the right school, although you might have those thoughts sometimes; it just means you're missing home, and that's okay.
3. Your friends from home will always have a special place in your heart.
When you go off to college, you'll meet a lot of new people. You may lose touch with some of your friends from high school, but the true friends will stick around, and when you see each other again, it will be like you were never apart. Those friends will be the ones that you can turn to when you have problems that your college friends can't help you with.
4. Some things have to be learned the hard way.
There are some things in life, especially at this age, that have to be learned the hard way: learning that you have to study a little more for your next test, that you shouldn't have had just one more drink the night before, that maybe you should've gone to the gym more (the freshman 15 is a very real thing), or that you shouldn't have gone out on Thursday night if you have Friday morning classes. But in the end, freshman year is a learning experience, and it's these things that make us who we are. And how are you supposed to learn from your mistakes if you don't make them, right?
5. Everything happens for a reason.
Freshman year will be one of the best years of your life. It's an excusable time to make dumb mistakes and learn for them, and to really get a feel for what life is like at your new home. When you pack up your room to move home for the summer, you'll realize how much you love that tiny dorm room that you moved into eight months earlier with a total stranger. You'll already be thinking about moving in for your sophomore year and all the fun times to come with your friends when you get back. Despite the times that you were beat down, stressed out, and thought you wanted to transfer, you'll realize that you really can't imagine yourself being anywhere else and that you made the right decision.
