College: a place where naive, freshly liberated youth have the opportunity to discover, learn, and experience things that will be a part of them forever. I’m currently one of these youth, and my first semester at Baylor was both exactly what I wished for and nothing like I’d ever imagined.

College is a big deal. So big, in fact, that the moment I committed to Baylor, I lost all form of interest in high school. I spent the latter part of my senior year often daydreaming about my first lecture, or how my room will look, or how many ceremonial celebrations of freedom and exuberance (AKA Frat Parties) I would attend. I did so many things to get ready for college, but when I finally got here, I still found myself shook by both the intense feeling of new-found freedom, as well as the enormous pressure that came with the label “college student.”

During my first week, I spent over $100 on fast food; not because I had an overwhelming desire to clog my arteries, but simply because I could. It became very evident to me that EVERY freshman ‘goes off’ to a certain degree. Barely 24 hours after giving a “yeah, mom, Baylor is a Christian school so you don’t have to worry” response to the whole “make good decisions” talk, I was surrounded by a small group (who each most likely said the same exact things to their parents) that was passionately cheering on as some guy shotgunned a beer.

This beer (as well as whatever the guy had eaten) was on the carpet less than 5 minutes later. The point is, even those of us who don’t drink get intoxicated by this new, sweet freedom. I came to realize that if I am to actually have a good college experience, I needed to find a way to make the most out of this freedom without having it interfere with my studies.

Speaking of studies, my first semester was rough. I’m pretty smart (just ask anyone who’s played Kahoot with me). Because of this, I got through high school by simply cruising along with minimal effort.

Spoiler alert: this approach doesn’t work in college.

I came into college hoping for the same laissez-faire experience that I had grown accustomed to, but instead, I found myself constantly getting hit and ran over by the struggle bus. The driver, lack of sleep, was often accompanied by passengers such as painfully long essays and reading assignments of biblical proportions (I LITERALLY had to read the whole bible for a course).

I’ve now grown familiar with all these, and I’ve also come to learn that there are hundreds of people and resources whose sole purpose here is to help me prosper.

Perhaps the most important thing I’ve learned from my college experience (other than how to find the first derivative of f(x)=(4lnx)(cosx)) is that I am not alone. For me, and (whether we like to admit it or not) many freshmen, moving away from close friends and family created a fallacy that “I am now facing the real world on my own.” It wasn’t until later that I realized there are people around me who are either going through or have overcome the same problems as me.

Whether it was a difficult chemistry test or a feeling of loneliness or even not knowing which dining hall has the best pancakes, I found solutions to most of the issues I faced in college by looking outwards to others.

I’m still growing into a more refined and capable young adult, and although college is just a small part of my life, I hope I can make the most of it, and I hope you can too.

Yours Truly,

Michael Maina