Another year has come and gone, and now it’s time for the moment that I’ve been waiting for – the start of my sophomore year. To be honest, I’ve been awaiting this time for much longer than I’ve been anticipating my freshman year. This is because I knew that the beginning of sophomore year was going to be different. I was no longer going to be the freshman finding her way around campus or getting nervous about attending social events because I didn’t know anybody. Now I’m a sophomore with a solid friend group and confidence in my classes and campus, that I could never have possessed at this time last year. The differences that can be noticed in as short of a period as one year are astounding, but they are reasonable, considering the changes that a college student will face in that one year.

Now, I cannot really apply this in my situation, since I’ve lived in Orlando my entire life, but I know many others who consider their college town their true hometowns now. I cannot count how many Facebook posts I saw of my college friends and sorority sisters talking about how excited they were to return to their "true home." A place that was once foreign has become their second home, and a campus that might have seemed intimidating and humid at first is now their sanctuary.

Move-in day also becomes surprisingly easier when you know what you’re signing up for. Last year on move-in day, I packed all my clothes and belongings into cardboard boxes with no idea of how difficult it would be to cart all these massive boxes up to the third floor of my freshman residence hall. I never had a choice in my dorm as a freshman, but when I was given the option to chose my own dorm in my sorority house, I knew that between the double on the fourth floor and the one on the first floor, the first would be ridiculously easier for move-in (and throughout the year). And since I’m still in the process of unpacking as I write this article, I can almost guarantee that I brought way more stuff this year as compared to last year. Yet the process was so much smoother and easier because I actually knew how to pack! I avoided the boxes and stuck to vacuum bags, which probably shaved off a good twenty minutes of move-in exhaustion.

This past week, only a few days before my sophomore move-in, I dropped my brother off at Duke University in North Carolina. As I left him in a place he had only visited a few times and where he knew next to nobody at all, I could tell that he was stressed. He has ahead of him a year of hit-or-miss friendships, all-nighters, and new experiences that are going to change his perspectives. His home will no longer be Orlando, but in North Carolina, where his campus and friends are. I’m already looking forward to next year when he’ll be starting his sophomore year with the confidence that he lacked this year during move-in day.

Freshman year is scary and unpredictable, but you have to get it out of the way and create a solid foundation within that year. This is the time that you can make mistakes. Take a class that’s completely unrelated to your major, or go party a little too hard the night before one of your hardest finals. Once sophomore year comes around, you’ll have a confidence that you gained by making your freshman year mistakes. What your real major should be will (hopefully) be a little clearer, and the friendships that last will carry you all the way through to your senior year. The freshman year is scary, but sophomore year will be a whole new story.