Leaving for college is both exciting and scary. While I’ll be meeting new friends and people, I’ll also be leaving behind many friends that I’ve known for most of my life. While I’ll gain more control over what I do, I also gain more responsibility and more pressure to do the right things. And while I’ll learn a bunch of new things in areas that I’m interested in, my association with those areas will soon become my job and not just my curiosity.
Looking at the scary side first, college is going to be a big rude awakening. Not only will I be immersed into a new home with a bunch of strangers, but I’ll be spending most of my time learning difficult material and thinking about what kind of job I’ll have in the future. The stresses of prospective failure will be a giant weight, and they’ll be even heavier when people like my parents and my friends can’t help me carry them. In college, failing a test is a bigger deal than failing a test in high school. Thinking of college in this way, it’s actually pretty terrifying.
Looking at the positive side of going off to college, I’ll be meeting tons of new people. Not only will these people be intellectuals and what not like me, but many of them will likely be associated with my major, meaning they’ll share my curiosity. I’ll also be gaining more control over my life. Once in college, I’ll be able to eat whenever (to an extent) I want and wherever (kind of) I want. Also, college will allow me to narrow down my studies into my choice area. I’ve always liked learning things, so I can only imagine that I’ll love learning things that I’m especially interested in.
I’m not the only person thinking these things, I’m sure. I’d imagine that most people getting ready to leave for college would have had at least some of these thoughts recently. College is a big change and people heading off to college for the first time are entering a phase of their life that will undoubtedly become the biggest, most influential one. Fear and excitement, thus, are very normal emotional reactions.
Despite the big question mark of what college has in store for me making the idea of it scary, I’m excited to start this phase of my life and begin my adulthood by becoming educated in what I’m interested in.
