As spring semester is finally winding down, it’s starting to hit me that I’m halfway down with my college career. Sophomore year was a mixture of ups and downs; of good experiences and bad experiences and everything in between. But even with bad experiences come lessons, so these are five things that I took away from my sophomore year of college.
1. The sophomore slump is very real.
The sophomore slump is a very real, and very debilitating, thing. Everything soon seemed to take a turn for the worst. I felt so out of place in my group of friends and even in my classes. I was questioning if my major was even right for me anymore. I started to lose motivation and it seemed like nothing was going right for me. But, even though the slump can really take on toll on your mindset, you have to keep telling yourself to push through; it’ll be worth it in the end.
2. It's okay to want a night in.
The freedom of freshman year was so new and exciting. You wanted to take in the full college experience, and your FOMO would be at an all time high when you missed that jungle-themed party at SAE. But sophomore year helped me realize that missing one party or a $2 Tuesday isn't the end of the world. Going out can make for some amazing stories, but it can also be exhausting. It's okay to want to chill inside on a Friday or Saturday (or both) and take some time to binge-watch a new Netflix series.
3. People will come and go.
Freshman year is full of new faces. You may have hung out a lot with a girl who lived a few doors down the hall from you, but now all you see of her is a picture when you scroll through your Instagram feed. And that's okay. People will come and go in your life; it's just a fact. You only need to find and surround yourself with a few good people to help support you.
4. This is actually starting to get serious.
Freshman year was full of 100 level gen-eds that you could easily skip when you wanted a few extra hours to sleep or went a little too hard at Delts the night before. Boy, do things change. That fun begins to fade as your second year begins gearing you more towards your major. You realize that the two absence rule can make your overall grade really take a hit, and you might not be able to afford that as you get deeper into your college career.
5. Mom really does have the answer for everything.
My time in dorms and dining halls freshman year had me feeling like living off-campus sophomore year would be a breeze. That is so not the case. I found myself calling my mom upwards of ten times a day to ask her questions as simple as how long I should cook something, to what kind of bathroom cleaner I should buy, to whether I like to eat raspberries or not. I swear she knows things about me that I don't even know about myself.
