Finding your "place" in college can be hard. For some people, it happens right away their freshman year and for others, it can take months or years. Even though community looks different for everyone and it comes at different times, there's no need to worry if it does not come right away for you.
Most campuses have hundreds of organizations that you can choose to be part of, so I promise there is a place for everyone.
I struggled with this most of my freshman year. I go to school in Texas and came all the way from Minnesota. I knew maybe three people coming into a school with around 16,000 students. As intimidating as it was, going into my sophomore year this year, I feel like I am finally finding my place.
It took me a whole year to get there and involved a lot of trial and error. Unfortunately, most of the people I was friends with right when I came to college are not part of what I call my "place" here at my university. I had to learn that that is okay. It's okay if your "place" is not with the first group of people that you meet. If everyone found their "place" right away, we would not have as much opportunity to meet different people. Sometimes it is a good thing to meet many people before finding where you belong.
After joining Kappa Alpha Theta last spring semester, I finally felt like I was meeting my people. The ironic part about was that I was not even planning on going through formal recruitment until last minute. Recruitment is in January right after Christmas Break and I decided on going through with it in later November around Thanksgiving. Most people go to college knowing that recruitment is something that they want to do, so to join then was considered very last minute. That experience showed me that most times you find your "place" or people when you aren't even looking for them.
Another thing I struggled with was watching people I knew find their place while I was still searching for mine. Even though it was tough, it taught me a lot of patience and showed me that everything really does work out in the end.
If there was one piece of advice I could give to people struggling to find their "place" at their university, it would be not to stress. I know that it can be discouraging and frustrating at times but stressing yourself out is only going to make you feel worse. I have learned that when we trust the process and believe in ourselves, that things turn out better than when we go through life with a negative mindset. Whether you find your people your first week of college or during your last year, you will find them.
College is a place where you learn who you are and having fun while doing it, so enjoy it while you can and know that everything will work out in the end.
