If I learned one thing in my freshman year of college is this: Put yourself first.
When I first came to college, I had a hard time. I felt like part of me was stuck in high school while the other part of me was being pulled to this new adult world that I did not think I was ready to face head on. All of a sudden there was no parents telling you to go to bed and to do your work. All of a sudden, it was just me.
I did not really even understand how much I had to focus on me until October. I remember the day specifically, I was in my dorm at 3am taking down all the pictures of my boyfriend that had just broken up with me. I was going through my decorations that I brought to college and found a letter from my sister, and one of the things on there said that college was all about discovering yourself and that I shouldn't be afraid of that. I hung it up on my wall and day by day I started believing that now was the time focus on me more than ever, I was single, without my best friends I had known for so long, and without my family. I officially had nothing holding me back in high school. I was ready.
Focusing on my school work came fiirst, and with focusing on my school work made me realize that this major that I was in and thought that I wanted for so long was no for me. This was my first step of learning to focus on me. I knew that high school me would run to her friends and boyfriend and would decide what to do solely on what they thought. This time around I wanted to be different. I didn't tell anyone about me possibly switching my major until I figured out what I wanted.
In high school, we are branded to be like everyone else. To shop at the same stores, go to the same concerts, like the same music, and to act a certain way. In college I learned that all of that mainstream music and clothes wasn't me. Once I learned to focus on me, I realized that. Now I embrace my style and my music taste. It is not like it was in high school and I love it. I finally realized who I really was.
With focusing on you comes blocking out the people that are not your true friends. You meet great friends in college, but you can also meet people that are not worth your time. In high school It was all about who had the most friends, in college I see it more as the opposite. People are gonna care more about seeing great friendships more than a whole pack of people walking into the dining hall together. When I started focusing on me, I learned to block out the people that did not matter. The ones that made me feel like you I was not good enough to be their friend. The ones that could care less if they invited you or not. The ones who will knock me down in order to get what they want. Focusing on me made me realize that they are not worth stressing over. I have more respect for myself than to get myself involved with people like that, but in high school I may have stuck around and let their words bother me. Focusing on myself gave me the power to realize that their words and actions should never affect me because regardless of what they say, i still know who I am.
When you're sitting in your college dorm all by yourself, with no one that you knew a month before then, the only thing you can focus on is yourself. Once you fully liberate yourself from high school, you go through many changes that, like my sister said, are very scary cause it is all happening so fast. That's the joy of being a freshman in college! Everything becomes real and you realize what is really important, like focusing on yourself.
