Goodbye living in your parents’ house! Goodbye sitting inside one school building for 6 consecutive hours! And goodbye high school friends that you don’t really know but feel obligated to say hi to in the hallways! Hello to a whole new world: college.

In high school, college was like the mythical place of instant adulthood and emotional maturity. Everyone knew that when you stepped foot on campus, you were really stepping into the real world. What they don’t tell you is that nothing is instantaneous.

The first week of college, I felt almost no different than when I was at home. I was excited to be there, and the campus and welcome activities were really cool, but it felt more like a summer camp slash extended sleepover. Where was the feeling of maturity and magical adulthood? Then I started classes and all my previous expectations went out the window.

I was always a hard-working student, but these classes were intellectual. It wasn’t just US History or AP English anymore. It was now Critical/Cultural Communication Studies, Hellenistic Art, and Visual Rhetoric of Pop Culture. In these kind of classes, you’re given information to learn, not to pass. If your high school experience was anything like mine, that’s a new concept.

I knew I would have more responsibilities in college, but I didn’t know how truly autonomous I had to be. It’s your job to wake up for class; your mom isn’t going to knock on your door and tell you to get up after you hit the snooze button for the third time. It’s up to you when, where, and what you eat. Whataburger at 1:00 am? No one’s going to tell you no. Home-cooked meals? You’d better have a friend with a kitchen. Even the littlest things you take for granted, like having a parent scheduling your doctors appointments and keeping track of your insurance, are now your responsibility. It’s shocking, to say the least.

Whether you like it or not, the first few months of college will change you. You might learn that though you’re really good with math, accounting just ruined you for that business major you wanted. Or that the Intro to Buddhism class you took as an elective because you didn’t get into any psychology classes is actually amazing, and you might even make it your minor. You may see the theater booth at the Organization Fair, and even though you’ve never sung a day in your life, being in the Phantom of the Opera production was the most fun you’ve had in years. You might start wearing Birkenstocks.

If there’s one thing you take away from this, make it these three words: embrace the change. These kinds of changes that you grow through will broaden your horizons, challenge you, and ultimately lead you towards that mythical adulthood you thought college would give you. Though it’s unbearably cheesy, you’ll find yourself throughout your four years here.

That’s not to say that you’ll be done changing after you graduate. College is just the start, and everyone grows at a different rate. There will be days when you feel prepared to jump right into the workforce, and days when you don’t realize that when someone says “adult supervision,” they mean you. There’s no manual or roadmap, but that’s the fun of it. The things you go through and the decisions you make have never been done the same way before. You’re on your own, and that’s okay.

So, Incoming College Freshmen, while you panic about the phrase “12 page essay” on your syllabus and attempt to plan out your naps, know this: it is all worth it. Embrace these changes. Once you do, everything else will fall right into place.