I have officially finished my first semester of college, which makes me a Certified Expert on being a freshman. Before coming to school I read so many articles on so many platforms about things “no one” tells you about going to college, so on move-in day I thought I had it all figured out.
No.
They lied.
Here, unfiltered, are the things that no one else is going to tell you about your first semester of college.
1) You will spend your first two weeks on the toilet.
Honestly, this is the worst. Your body is not used to eating Sodexo food every meal of the day, with the occasional supplement of ramen. The worst part of syllabus week is that you’re going to be spending at least two hours a day with your ass glued to the toilet, due to the havoc that the cafeteria food is going to wreak on your intestines. The constant gassiness and bloat is going to wreck any hope you had of maintaining your high school athlete physique.
2) Your high school friends are all going to look like they’re having a better time than you.
Everyone is going to be posting highlights of their lives on their Snapchat stories and on Instagram, and on the nights when you’re alone binge-watching The Office and sloppily eating a pint of ice cream you’re going to check social media and wonder how all your friends are actually enjoying college when you’re sitting alone doing nothing. This does suck, but you have to realize that even if they’re not showing it, everyone is going through the same thing. Everyone posts stuff when they’re having fun, but no one really shows the sad and lonely parts of their life.
3) You’re probably going to question why you picked your school at least once every ten minutes.
After I’d settled in at my school, I immediately began to hate it. Like, really hate it. Everything from the size, to the level of difficulty of classes, to the smell of my dorm’s bathroom had me questioning why I’d made the decision to attend here a few months back. And apparently, that’s a super normal reaction. I thought I was the only one who couldn’t stand the striking beauty of my campus (I literally complained to my mom that the buildings at my school were “too nice”) until I finally opened up to a couple other freshmen about it and realized we all felt the same way.
4) You’re going to miss things about home that you didn’t even think possible.
Before going to school, you have everything mentally mapped out that you’re going to miss--your pets, your friends, your parents (maybe). But then you get to school and you start missing the most random stuff from home. Very often, I find myself fantasizing about the absolutely awful, overpriced curly fries and Bosco sticks from my high school cafeteria. I also miss things like the comfort of being in a house, real couches, and, as much as I hated my job in high school, having an income. These are all things that I would have never even thought were missable before I came to school.
5) Your “fresh start” isn’t as fresh as you think.
Yes, you’re starting over in a new place, a new school with all new people who don’t know anything about your past or who you were in high school. But you’re still you. No matter how far away you go from home, you won’t leave yourself behind. Big procrastinator in high school? It’s going to carry over into college, guaranteed. You only had a few really close friends back home? You’re not going to have a huge friend group in college, either. This isn’t a bad thing. You’ll thrive as long as you let yourself be yourself. It took me a while to realize that I was the person I was in high school for a reason, and that I’m happiest when I’m being myself and doing my own thing. It’s a pretty empowering thing to realize, and it can take a while. College is all about finding yourself and figuring out who you are as a person, and this is a huge component of that.
