College is a weird time. People describe us as still in our formative years, while expecting us to carry ourselves like adults. People think we are so naive, yet they expect us to know so much. People tell us that life "hasn't tested us yet," but we have already experienced so much.
So, I reached out to 25 college students from both my own school and schools in other parts of the country and asked them, drawing from what they've already experienced, "What is the hardest lesson you have learned so far?"
1. You can't do everything. And it's okay to not be ok.
"There are two which hold the same level of value to me. The first is that I can't do everything. Since being at school I've had to come to terms with the fact that I can't be everywhere at once, do everything I want to do, and do everything perfectly at the same time. This has become even more difficult to come to terms with while I've been far from home during some extremely difficult times for my friends and family. The other hardest lesson is that it's ok to not be ok. We are human; I am human, I have to constantly remind myself. I'm constantly learning these lessons everyday. And I will continue to hold them dearly."
-Sophie
2. Listen to advice.
"The hardest lesson I learned was to actually listen to advice that people who love me were giving me instead of ignoring them because it disagreed with what I wanted to do."
-Kelly
3. Efficiently use your time.
"Learning how to efficiently use my time on weekends. Not sleeping all day, not going out every Friday/Saturday night, getting a head start on exam studying, and trying to start homework earlier than Sunday at 11 p.m. There's more to do than party on weekends!"
-Andrew
4. There is always somebody better.
"There is always someone more creative, daring, talented, successful, and favored than I am even at my best."
-Jane L.
5. Bounce back.
"You have to learn to let things go and bounce back from them and not live in the past like when my 4x800m got disqualified and we didn't get to go to the track state group championship. The next day I bounced back and ran a big PR for the 3200m."
-Nick
6. You're not going to save the cookies for later.
"Don't grab 8 sugar cookies on the way out of the dining hall planning to save them for later because you will eat all of them at once when you get back to your room and regret it during your track workout the next day."
-Kristin
7. Move on from others.
"Definitely learning when to give up on people after trying to make the relationship work for so long."
-Ashley
8. Learn to laugh at yourself.
"Learning not to be embarrassed at little things and being able to laugh at myself. I've determined that if you screw something up, it's not weird or embarrassing unless you make it weird or embarrassing."
-Jane R.
9. Work for what you want.
"Not everything always comes easy to you and you have to work hard for the things you want in order to succeed."
-Anonymous
10. The unpredictability of life.
"There are no guarantees."
-Stephen
11. Take control of your own destiny.
"You are in control of your own life and what you make of it. Make the most of what you're given and don't expect things to come to you. Take each hardship as a stepping stone and grow from every challenge you face. Each day spent wondering 'what if' is each day you could've made it happen."
-Kristina
12. Go with the flow.
"Everything isn't going to go the way it's planned or the way you want it to. I've learned this in more ways than one, some being more simple than others. I think it's really important that I've recognized this because it takes such a long time to accept, especially when you're a 'planner,' but as I'm learning to do this I'm realizing that it's now a lot easier to go with the flow of things."
-Megan
13. Don't drink your emotions away. And people will always come and go.
"Drinking while angry is never a solution to a problem. I've also learned that people come and go from your life all the time. It hurts so much but that's just the way life goes."
-Alli
14. Take risks.
"You have to get out of your comfort zone in order to improve yourself. Trying new things can sometimes be terrifying, but it is the best way to learn something new."
-Anonymous
15. Never lie to your mom.
"I told my mom I was going to a party when really I was meeting a boy. I ended up getting pulled over twice and was given three tickets. I was going to pay them before my mom found out, but they had sent a letter immediately after for my court date."
-Jayda
16. Learn what you can and can't control.
"I'm kind of a control freak, so when something goes wrong I like to obsess over it and try to fix it right away. This is okay when I can fix the problem, but there are some things you will never have control over. Learning what you can and can't control and learning how to let go of the things you can't control is probably my hardest lesson and something I'm still working on learning."
-Hannah
17. You can't trust others.
"You can't rely on anyone but yourself. People often aren't what they seem, and I guess in college I've realized that I can't rely on anyone but myself to make myself happy because a lot of people are just not dependable and are selfish."
-Anonymous
18. Don't always open up.
"It's not always good to open up to people. It's hard when you think you've found a person you can finally be open and comfortable with and they turn out to be a completely different person and use it against you."
-Jake
19. Let go.
"Like many lessons in life, I learned how to let go because of heartbreak. A boy I met at a party asked me to hang out with him in his dorm. We had sex. I didn't object because, at that time, I was feeling insecure. I tried hanging out with him again, but he was unresponsive and wound up ghosting me. For a long while, I was hung up on the rejection and it took me a long time to understand and embrace it. It definitely took me having to build myself up to learn how to truly let go. And, I can honestly say that learning how to let go may have honestly been one of the best things that ever happened to me."
-Anonymous
20. Do what is right for you.
"During high school I KNEW I was going to be an engineer. I mean I was in the top twenty in my class, practically all A's. I looked solely at tech schools, and just like that I was a civil engineer in RPI's Class of 2021. However, my first round of testing proved utterly dismal. That's when I came to the decision that maybe engineering wasn't my thing. My ROTC scholarship depended on my GPA staying above a 2.0 and well, that whole semester did not give me any room to breathe. Now this semester, I am taking a course load of management courses, and I am enjoying the material so much more. I am just here to say it’s ok. Don’t be afraid to switch majors, switch colleges. It’s your life, you only get one shot at it.
-Tim
21. You can't change other people.
"Some people are the way they are and wanting them to change isn't going to make them different. I've encountered a lot of people who are needlessly rude or flakey. After a certain amount of time I realized that at this point in their lives, that is who they are, and me wanting them to be different isn't going to change that. Only they can change it."
-Liane
22. The independence of college.
"When coming to college, especially a larger one, no one is going to tell you to be a Place X or Place Y at this town. While it could be seen as a positive, learning to manage that new responsibility is definitely one of the hardest lessons I've learned."
-Matt
23.) The unfortunate reality of alcohol.
"Not all gin is gluten-free."
-Zoe
24. Life is what you make it.
"Things aren't always going to turn out the way you want or expect them to. I learned this when I didn't get into my top choice college a year ago, and again when I realized that my family and I would be in deep debt if I chose to attend my second top choice college. So I ended up coming to Penn State, the very last place I thought I expected to go to college. I've kept an open mind, made amazing friends, and taken advantage of countless opportunities. I haven't once regretted my decision to come here."
-Abigail
25. Respect the opinions of others.
"I think the hardest lesson I've learned so far is that I'm not always right, and I have to take other people's opinions."
-Joe
