Your freshman year was amazing but when it ended you felt like you still had an eternity of college left. Now your sophomore year has come to a close and it’s hard to believe that you are actually half way done already. You watch your older friends graduate and enter the real world (scary I know), and think to yourself how weird it will be when that is you someday. Well now “someday” is coming sooner than we thought and it’s honestly a little depressing. Sophomore year you are no longer a little freshman on campus. You know your way around, you have good friends who aren’t going anywhere, and you feel like you have finally settled into college life. As soon as you feel settled, however, you realize the world is getting ready to uproot you once again and it is a scary feeling, how can we possibly be half way done?! This is when the mid-college crisis sets in…
You feel too old to go to the frats but are still too young to go to the bars.
Yes you will now be that *gasp junior hanging out at the frats with all of the new freshmen and sophomores. Some of your friends are old enough to go to the bars but you’re not quite there yet. You’re caught in this awkward middle age and feel like the odd one out. You still want to go out because you realize you only have so many nights out left, but you don’t really fit in anymore. It’s ok though, you’re junior friends will gladly be the other grandmas at the frats with you and you will be able to live vicariously through the new youngsters.
You realize you have no idea where your life is going.
You have a major (and probably minor) you are working on by now but that just tells you what classes and internships to take and get. Once this year is over you are going to start having to think long and hard about the next step. You feel like you just got to college and now you have to leave and start actually living on your own without all of your friends? This does not sound like fun at all. To make matters worse you have no idea where your life is actually going. Sure you have a few friends that already know they are going to medical school or moving to New York to be a buyer, but you are just kind of free floating hoping someone will hire you. This may be the scariest part of the mid-college-crisis.
You realize how fast time is going by.
Freshman and sophomore year flew by, so we can only assume junior and senior will blow by just as quickly. We spend most of our young lives waiting for the next step, waiting to get older, waiting for life to happen, but when it actually starts picking up speed all we want to do is go back to freshman year and do it all over again.
Age is catching up to you like never before.
You start to realize it now more than ever. In high school you had no problem waking up at 7 a.m. or earlier and staying in class almost all day until 3 p.m. Now that you’re an elderly college student (with only 2 young years left) you have slowed down significantly. Back in the day you could wake up at 7, go to school, go to your sports practice, do some homework and go to bed by midnight every night. Though you can still stay up late some nights, those are now your “wild nights”. Most days you are most content waking up around 11-noon and going to bed promptly at 10:30 sharp with your Netflix. If you accidentally get stuck with an 8 a.m. or 9 a.m. class it seems like the literal end of the world. You get grumpy if you miss your mid-day nap, and have to muster up all of the energy possible to stay out later than 1 a.m.. Where did all of that freshman year energy go? Going out every night and getting up in the morning for classes and going to the gym used to be a breeze. Now us middle aged college students are lucky if we’re up by 10 .a.m and get a decent work out in. We are also very proud if we are able to stay out later than midnight, we are just simply aging much more rapidly than planned.
We want to accomplish as much as possible before graduation.
Freshman year we thought we had all of the time in the world to complete our college bucket list, but the years are ticking by and we have not completed much yet and it’s making us nervous. We wanted to study abroad, or get an internship, go to all of the concerts possible, jump of the high dive, swim in the campus fountain, go to all the famous college town eateries and bars, storm the field, and make the craziest memories with our forever friends. This might sound easy to accomplish but the list never stops growing, and neither does our number of assignments due, not to mention this all has to fit around nap and Netflix time.
You realize you won't live with (or at least within walking distance) of all your best buds.
One of the most amazing parts of college is getting to live with your best friends, or at least a short walk or car ride away. If you’re lucky like me you have lived with your very best friends every year and have become friends with people who make you never want to go home. Graduation is around the corner and you realize the gang will inevitably split up. You know you will keep in touch but it wont be the same as sleeping ten feet away from them or down the hall. You can only hope that all your best friends will move to fabulous towns and cities that you wont mind visiting a bunch of times each year. Distance makes the heart grow fonder, something college students learn when they leave their high school friends, family, and hometown behind. The same goes for college students, so visiting the college buddies after graduation will be a must. If you’re like me and love your university more than anything you will also be one of those alumni that wants to come back every year for Homecoming festivities and events on campus as often as possible.
“When I grow up”
Was a phrase used so innocently as children. We now realize that we are indeed grown up and just don’t want to admit it yet. Now when we use the phrase we are referring to what we are doing at the end of these next two years.
