The summer before freshman year... those were the days. Dreaming about all the fun you're about to have for the next four years, all the lifelong friends you will make, new things you're about to learn and getting to know the beautiful campus you'll get to walk on everyday. The parties you'll attend, all the gorgeous people that you'll see wearing school colors on Fridays. The tailgates, football games, concerts and more! There won't be a dress code like in high school and you can even wear your pajamas to class!
And then on that first day of class, you walk into the tiniest classroom that smells like sweaty socks. This is your first day in college. This is the first day of the rest of your life. Sweaty socks.
Face it, college is not what it is cracked up to be.
The movies have made it so luxurious and dreamy, yet the reality of it is that all of your classrooms smell like sweaty socks that haven't been washed since the founding of your university. Your desks are creaky, chalkboards messy, WiFi down, and you always get stuck sitting next to the smelly kid and you're too nice to move. Not to mention, college is hard!
But trust me, it's not all bad. It's actually a really rewarding time in your life. You get to choose your schedule accordingly, maybe get a work-study opportunity, and chat with your professors who are surprisingly really awesome and down to earth. They don't hate your guts. You have the ability to study abroad, join Greek life, be a part of student government, you can join clubs, be a teacher's assistant, or simply sit in the student union eating Chick-Fil-A by yourself hoping someone will come eat chicken nuggets with you. One day someone will want to be my friend...
Anyways, aside from the sweaty socks, college is great. It can be the best and worst time of your life. It can be the most exciting or most boring time of your life. But you know what, it's what you make of it. If you want to sit in bed and procrastinate by binge watching Gilmore Girls then go for it, but there will be consequences. If you want to go out and party three nights a week then go for it, but there will be much pain afterwards. If you want to do your homework right off the bat and get it out of the way so you can have a life and...wait, nobody does that.
Believe me when I say that I had high expectations of college, but they got shut down. I didn't make friends easily, nobody was nice, I was never invited to any parties, and wearing our school colors on Fridays isn't really a thing apparently... But I gave it time and soon enough, the sweaty sock smell wore off, I configured the perfect piece of paper to put under my desk to make it stop wobbling, the WiFi wasn't the problem (it's my technological inabilities), and I was the smelly kid in class.
To sum it all up, college may not be a huge party, but it sure is enough to give you some interesting stories.
