Dear Me,
This is a letter to you about all the things you learned and wish you knew during freshman year. This is going to be a strange year; you’re going to move away from home for the first time and be placed on a floor with strangers who will later on become your best friends. The first day will be awkward- you won’t know how to act, who to talk to, or where to go. You don’t know who will become your best friend on the floor and you’ll begin to think you won’t ever have one. You’ll miss your family like crazy and begin to wonder if you made the right choice coming to such a big school- you’re used to seeing a couple hundred of the same faces a day. But it will be ok. You’ll get past this stage and become friends with some of the most amazing and caring people. You don’t immediately become friends with them all at once, but gradually you do. You start to form jokes with them, borrow clothes from them, and take diner runs with them. Even though there are some fights and disagreements among the floor, you realize it wouldn’t be a family if everyone were always happy. These friends are the reason that freshman year was so great- they took care of you when you were sick, were there for you when you were sad, and always made you laugh. Even though initially you were nervous, you’re so glad you opened up to the girls on your floor because they truly are some of the best people that you will ever meet (Shout out to E8 <3 <3 <3).
Classes will be extremely different. Having less than 20 people in a class like you did in high school is not always the case. You walk into your first huge lecture and wonder how you’ll be able to get anything done. Thankfully, you’ll become great friends with someone in it, so you’re not completely alone. You try to balance your social life with your school life and with all the freedom…you fall slightly off track. Eventually, you realize that you don’t always have to be around the action- you can sit in your room by yourself and relax and not go into the lounge worrying that you’ll miss the next big joke. Once you realize that, you’ll start to get yourself together. You go out occasionally, but not as much as you did in the beginning of the year. You do better in your classes and reach your goal GPA. However, you’ll see that it is good to go out occasionally because you need time to just chill out and when you do, you’ll meet some amazing people that will make your year even better.
This year has also taught you that you can’t always master everything. You get the lowest grade you’ve ever gotten in a class and you beat yourself up for it. You studied your hardest and tried your best, but you still didn’t get it. After a while, you realize that you won’t be the absolute best at every single thing you do and while that sucks, it helps the situation.
In general, you’ll see how much you will grow from the beginning to the end of freshman year. You begin to wonder how you could’ve been so naïve about certain things and how you missed certain opportunities, but you’ll see that everything is a learning experience. If you hadn’t made mistakes, you wouldn’t have learned to never do them again. Freshman year will help you become the person you truly are and will give you so many opportunities. You’ll meet your best friends, you’ll try new things, and you’ll begin to find yourself. Even though at the end of the year you’ll start to want to go home, once you get there, you’ll realize how much you miss it. Freshman year will be hard, but you can do it. Just keep your head up and always do your best.
You got this,
Me
