As my freshman year of college comes to an end, I have started thinking about all the things I have learned in this past year, probably more than I have in all the past years combined. Honestly, my collegiate life and life in general so far has not been an easy one but it has taught me a lot about people.
I used to believe college was going to be exactly like a movie and you would find your true love and best friends and everything would finally fall into place, but the reality is that college is a just high school except everyone is pretending to be an adult. With that being said here are 7 more things I learned this year.
1. No one is going to fix you, you aren't going to fix anyone either
If you're waiting for that knight in shining armor to come and sweep you away and fix all your trust issues, I hate to say it my friend but you will be waiting forever. Its hard to find a prince among drunk fraternity boys in Hawaiian shirts at a bar. The only person who will always have your back and can help you through anything is yourself. At the same time, you can not change people because PEOPLE DO NOT CHANGE, so stop trying to turn the Hawaiian shirt boy into a man in a tailored Calvin Kline suit. You will drive yourself insane because you can't make them treat you right, you can't make them love you, and you can't make them care about you. This applies to all relationships, platonic and romantic alike.
2. Your life will never be perfect
Stop waiting for things to magically work out, and make them workout. Its time you start acting like an adult and talk things out, I wasted so much time this year avoiding conflict over really stupid things. Stop shit talking your sorority sisters, stop playing mind games with some boy you met at happy hour, and STOP being afraid to talk to your professors. I promise office hours are not held in some torture chamber and most professors are actually really cool people. Make your own opportunities, make things happen and stop being afraid of change.
3. You’ll make a lot of mistakes
I firmly believe it should be added to the orientation that freshman year is the year you’ll make more mistakes than you ever have before in your life. You’ll fail a few tests, you’ll miss a few classes, you’ll kiss a few frogs, and you will fight with your roommate over something that will not matter in a week, but that's just life. Try again the next day and hope for the best.
4. The past is the past
Yes, you’ll make a lot of mistakes, but people will forget about them so you should too. Stop beating yourself up over that stupid thing you did at a frat party 3 months ago. It literally does not matter. Deal with the consequences of your mistakes and then let them go.
5. Your roommate is not your enemy
Listen, you don’t need to be her best friend or even her friend in general. You just have to live with them. But they are the only person that can look out for you in certain situations, like if you lock yourself out at 2 am, only they can let you in. Also, if you mysteriously went missing they would probably be the first person to notice. So don’t treat them like they have the plague, say hi, bring them a cookie from the caf, try and be nice even if you hate them.
6. Multitasking is a lie
Multitasking may be key to life just not schoolwork. Changing tasks constantly accomplishes nothing. All this does is stress you out, and can cause you to mess up. It will take longer to do two assignments while switching back and forth than it would to do them separately. Finish an assignment and then start another, trust me on this one.
7. You have way more time than you think
There are 168 hours in a week, that's a lot of hours. So next time you are about to say “I don't have the time” don't because it's a complete lie. I never realized how much time I waste messing around on my phone until I came to college. I don't know about you but I don't think Instagram is going to help me grow as a person. So, stop spending time on things that don't matter and start getting involved on campus. Manage your time well and you will accomplish so much.
