Dear Incoming Freshmen,
Here you are, you’ve made it to see the day that you knew was going to come eventually, but you never really expected it to. It’s the day that you have spent the last 18 or so years of your life preparing for.
You finally graduated high school, and you have chosen the path that leads you to college. It’s a day of happiness, anxiety, euphoria, sadness. It’s bittersweet. You keep jumping back and forth from emotion.
Perhaps you didn’t exactly go to college for yourself, but you decided to go because that’s what you were expected to do. Or maybe you wanted to go because you wanted to live up to your own expectations. And either way, you are in for a surprise, a rude awakening, a new and exciting experience.
I’m sure you’re wondering how can college be so bad yet so great? Here’s the thing: college is not bad. College is a new experience that many people aren’t ready to put their hands in, and sometimes that can be overwhelming.
Sometimes the standards you are held to by certain professors are overwhelming. Sometimes living by yourself (well, without your parents) can be overwhelming. Sometimes your high school A’s turn into college C’s, which can be VERY overwhelming if you’re used to that 4.0 GPA.
But guess what? It’s okay, and you’re going to be okay. The people you meet, the new experiences, the lessons you learn outweighs every “bad” thing there is about college. You will meet people, and you will wonder how you ever made it through life without them.
You will experience things that you never thought you would step out of your comfort zone to experience. You will learn lessons that might be hard to swallow but will make you a better person in the end.
I have carried a little piece of advice with me throughout my freshman year, and that is sometimes you have to do something you’ve never done before. Your best bet is to just roll up your sleeves and do it. Also, always remember to be empathetic-- everyone is living a life as vivid and complex as your own. Exercise patience, give things time, and your situations will calm.
