The Biggest Takeaway I Learned In College Is That You Are The Best Possible You There Is

College is a very unique and rewarding experience for everyone. You live the majority of your childhood growing up in the same town going to the same school with the same people until you finally graduate and move on to the next chapter in your life. When you first come to college, you are deemed a tiny little freshman who doesn't have a clue how college works, which is a true statement. You are in new territory, uncharted land that you've never experienced. You learn how to meet new people by asking/answering the never-ending mundane questions like "What's your major, where are you from, why did you choose this school." You're of course going to college to get an education and potentially graduate and find a job and go on with your life. But no one really prepares you for the amount of growing up you do while you are in college. You don't realize how much you have changed or grown in the 4 short years.

I am a senior at Baylor University and by the grace of God, I am graduating in December. Seriously, I still can't believe I'm saying that and I'm a month away from the date! As I am in the home stretch of my journey as a college student, I've had a lot of time to reflect on who I have become since I stepped foot on the Baylor campus almost 3 1/2 years ago. People are constantly changing. Whether we're changing our physical appearance or how we act or talk, we are all changing, all the time.

College, in my opinion, is the time of your life where you are changing the most. You are learning so many new things about yourself like how you work with others, how you handle stressful situations like finishing a day's worth of homework in 4 hours or having to take yourself to the doctor when you feel like your dying and your mom isn't there to help. It's easy to look at situations you've found yourself in and think about them on the surface level, just looking at the facts. But recently, I've looked back on situations I've been in and I can clearly see how that event has shaped me into who I am today.

My biggest takeaway is I've learned to be comfortable with who I am as a person. Growing up, I always found myself trying to act or become like the people I surrounded myself with. I always wanted to fit in and have people think I'm a really cool person or try to make myself this extroverted person that everyone flocks to. Of course, I had my best friends who I knew I could be my complete self around and they would still accept me (shoutout to you peeps for still being in my life).

Throughout my college career, I've learned that the best way to find your "forever friends," the people who you can depend on when the going gets tough or you just need to laugh, is to be yourself. Don't stress about the people who are around you and what they might think of you. You are who you're supposed to be because that is the way God created you. Trying to hide who you are will only lead to you being upset and hurting yourself.

College is not an easy time. You find yourself sleep deprived, missing home way too often, stressed to the max about school and your life after college but there is one thing you are in control of. Yourself. Be who you believe you are meant to be and the craziness of college and life will straighten itself out.