As the first finals week you’ve ever experienced comes to a much needed close, you might be sitting in your dorm room realizing that college was NOTHING like you expected. College is supposed to be the “time of your life” after all...right? So what did you do wrong? Good question. The answer is nothing, so don’t worry. But if you’re anything like me, that answer did not calm your nerves at all. So here are a few possible reasons why your college experience so far has been just…”eh”:
1. Dorms in general aren’t home-y at all
How is the college of your choice supposed to be your “home away from home” if your only personal space is a rectangular box cluttered with wooden furniture? You went from having a kitchen, living room, and all this other space to having MAYBE a bathroom inside your little prison cell, if you’re lucky. I mean, come on, you can’t even burn candles in your dorm room. So you can’t even stick a “Home Sweet Home” Yankee candle in there to fake the homeyness.
2. Roommates are a make-or-break situation
Whether you knew who you were rooming with prior to Move-In Day or not, you’re still sharing your personal space with someone for an entire year. You may not be experiencing this, and if you aren’t, you really dodged a bullet. Because it’s that lovely moment when you have your first disagreement and you realize you can’t just avoid the person. Nope, this is not high school. You aren’t going to be able to give them a dirty look and then go home and talk about how annoying they are with your friends. This person, who now is on your last nerve way quicker than you ever imagined, is in your living space. When you go to your dorm to take a nap, they’re there. When your show you’ve been waiting all week to watch is on, they’re there. It gets old, and it puts a damper on your time at college.
3. You’re already sort of over the party scene
Sure, going out every once in awhile is fun, but it gets to be repetitive. Especially if your college is pretty much known for partying, it may be hard your first semester to find something else to do that doesn’t involve sweaty frat houses. Eventually, you’ll discover your college town a little more, but right now, you kind of just feel like an outcast. Trust me, it’s okay that “Thirsty Thursday” isn’t your scene.
4. Long-distance relationships
Maybe this is the first time you and your significant other are away from home at different schools. To not have the one person you want to experience everything with can take a toll on you. And depending on how often you may see them, you have to put in extra effort to stay connected. This could definitely be a whole other article in itself, but all in all, it’s hard. And everything would just be a little bit easier if they were there with you.
5. FRESHMAN. PARKING.
If you’re a freshman, you either aren’t allowed to have your car at college, or you get the shittiest parking pass choices. Are you kidding me? You just got a car maybe a year ago and you can’t even have it with you/near you? Yep, even though you pay this place thousands of dollars to attend every year, you still have one more year of getting the short end of the stick. It really wasn’t that bad at first. Then, winter happened. Now it’s a struggle to even walk to the cafe to eat. And before you know it, it’s 10 AM and you’re sitting in a cold dorm room with a half-eaten granola bar and no motivation to do anything. Eventually, once you do have your car, you’ll never imagine how you went without it.
6. You joined too much
Come the end of finals week, you find yourself in several organizations and clubs which is where you spend all of your time. It has definitely been a struggle to grasp the concept of time management, but you did it. But you never really have time to yourself. You just put your name down for all of these things because it eventually would make you look good, even if it’s taking so much time out of your life. Or, you figured staying involved would make you less homesick, which is also extremely common. Either way, you’ve started to get lost in all the commotion and never really asked yourself if that is exactly what you wanted.
7. You didn’t join anything
Everyone seems to have friends they’re constantly with and then… there’s you. You were too nervous to join not knowing where you’d fit in, so you just didn’t and now you feel lonely. During the first semester of college, everyone goes through that moment when they feel entirely lonely. Obviously it is not a great feeling. This is when you feel like you should’ve gone to college closer to home or you should’ve just gotten out of the dorm and did something. All you seemed to do is go to class, eat, sleep, and repeat. Luckily, this is fixable, and maybe it will motivate you to take a risk and join something. Don’t worry, there are many more semesters to come and plenty more opportunities.
8. Is my major for me?
Honestly, there are about 8 billion different statistics out there, so I’m just going to say this: Almost everyone changes their major. This first semester was definitely an experiment for you. You’ve read all these stories about people switching from major to major, thinking that it will never be you. Once you have that realization that it is normal, now what? You tried one major already, but what else should you try? Are you going to be behind? What if this one isn’t for me either? If you’re like me, you hate being wrong--especially about where you see yourself in the future. So now with all of these anxious feelings, you’re questioning whether you wasted your semester or not.
If you’ve experienced any of these things, the best thing to realize is… you’re not alone. There is at least someone on this earth feeling how you are. Eventually, these things play out and at the end of the day, everything is okay. So... (disclaimer: cliche motivator approaching) hang in there. There is so much more yet to come.
