It's the start of a new semester (because I'm sure none of you knew that). That really didn't mean all that much to me when I was in high school, but now that I'm in college, a new semester means new teachers, new classes, and new students to potentially be friends with. If I'm being honest, I wasn't really looking forward to starting classes again. I'm the type of person who likes to overwork myself and who won't stop doing homework until I have a migraine, so I was really enjoying myself over winter break. I also am going to be completely honest: I didn't really make any friends here during the fall, and I mainly just hung out with the people I was already friends with in high school. From the experiences I've had, college life didn't exactly seem too great.

If you feel the same way, which from reading all of your social media posts it seems like a lot of you do, you probably want to do everything in your power to make this spring semester really enjoyable. I'm not qualified to give anyone advice on how to enjoy a spring semester here at NCSU, but I do have experience with overcoming difficulties in life and changing my attitude on things for the better. And that's why I think the best thing we can do is to not get our hopes up and to also not expect a whole lot from the world around us. We hear it all the time, that college is supposed to be the greatest four years of our lives. But life seems to be nothing but pain and suffering that promises disappointing moments of bliss that most of us don't even get to experience, so maybe these really are the best four years of our lives. Now, I don't know any more than you do, but I still doubt that life doesn't improve after this. I thought everyone agreed that the best four years of our lives are the first four years of our life, but I digress. If you're not enjoying college now, I really don't know if it will get any better because I'm a freshman, but one thing I've found is that if you set your expectations really low, then things tend to have the illusion of being better than they actually are. And I'm gonna be honest with myself: I expected way too much out of college anyways. So me lowering my expectations is just me viewing things realistically.

So yes, we have to repeat another semester and get stressed about every category we could possibly think of. However, a new semester means that we now have the opportunity to improve ourselves. We now have someone to compare ourselves to besides just other people. It's a fresh start that allows us all to improve our study habits, our GPAs, and our life in general. So, as a wise woman once said, "just enjoy [it]".