College…

“It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times...”

When I was in high school, I was a straight A and B student. I graduated third in my class. I took seven college classes, a total of twenty-two credits (and one of them was on a Saturday!) while working a part-time job. It was pretty rough.

I worked my butt off senior year, but it never prepared me for how busy and stressful my first semester of college was going to be. People often remind me that the first semester of college is usually the hardest, and I’m trying to keep that in mind.

Let’s start at the beginning: Move-in day. I was so, so extremely nervous to meet my roommate and the people that I would be living. My roommate and I hit it off — and the people on my floor are fairly friendly.

When classes started, I was a bit overwhelmed. I took seventeen credits, which everyone thought was bizarre. I had a ton of homework and there were so many other things to remember to do.

There were so many adult responsibilities; paying my student loans and my phone bill on time, going to the bursar's office and financial aid office to take care of other bills. I’m an adult now — my mom can’t do anything for me unless I gave her permission, but still…That’s something I gotta handle.

On top of that, there’s the whole making sure you eat three super good meals, take care of yourself, make time to make new friends and time for hobbies…

It’s a lot to deal with, especially all at once. I don’t drive, so there were no random trips home when I was homesick (this was a good thing because it forced me to get involved on campus! Go to a sports game, meet up with friends, go for a walk, whatever).

The only thing I could really do when I was homesick was calling my mom, and most of those phone calls ended with me crying or almost crying.

I had a hard time making friends. I went to a small school, I knew everybody and I went to school with most of the same people since pre-school. PRE-SCHOOL.

But there have been a lot of good things that I’ve learned and done that has made my college experience awesome. I’ve had some really great professors — both personality wise and teaching wise. They really cared about me, and that was super beneficial.

As I stated earlier, I went to a really small school. I had a super good relationship with all of my teachers. I would go hang out with them during my free periods, just to talk with them. I developed great relationships with my teachers over the years (I miss them so much!) and I miss having that sense of closeness. So it's really nice that some of my professors, even in big lectures, still managed to develop a relatively close relationship with me.

I’ve grown to be a much more independent person. I’m getting the hang of taking care of things — adult things and myself. It’s not easy; the first semester, you’re thrown into everything. You’re expected to handle it right off the bat. I learned pretty quickly how to handle “being an adult."