As the first of many college years come to a close, reflect back onto the whirlwind of emotions that encompassed the year.

You first arrived to campus and moved all your stuff into this tiny-compact living space, which you had to share with one or two additional people for the entire course of the year here. You said your goodbyes to your mom, dad, brother, sister, and whoever else decided to tag along on the monumental occasion. Either you are the first one to attend college or the last one to leave the house, or somewhere in the middle this is a huge deal for your parents. They raised you and watched you go through everything that you have in life, now they have to give up the right to see all that you accomplish at a school hours away from them. Yes, you sent them the occasional picture, but that is not the same to them. Some of you felt relief of being away from them always looking over your shoulder and some of you felt empty because you no longer had your mom there to help you (admit it whenever we are stuck or confused we want our mom to help us, especially when we lost something).

You are midway through the first semester. You have made a lot of friends and are becoming more comfortable with the college atmosphere. The first semester was not all rainbows and butterflies, there were a lot of storms that came rolling over you. Whether it was you failed your first exam or you did not get the grade you wanted on a paper that you were so confident on. You then thought to yourself: “This is not me…I have always succeeded with this."

You called your parents crying because you just did not know what to do or if you were ever going to improve. You felt like you were at the lowest point in your education that you have ever experienced. You just did not know what to do next.

After your first semester was over and you went home for winter break, you anxiously awaited to see your final grades. When those grades did come out, you were overjoyed to see that you passed, because you put in so much work and you deserved to pass. Even if the grades weren’t what you wanted, you learned to accept them because you are not going to get the grades that you were in high school and you were okay with that.

Welcome to second semester. You are ready to take the bull by the horns and do better than you did last semester. You worked harder than you did first semester, along with getting more involved in clubs and organizations and just on campus in general. These connections that you made help you to seek a way to take a break from studying and relieve the stress that you are enduring.

Finally second semester of your freshman year is soon to be over or already over. You did the best you can and that is what you need to be proud of. Be proud of the work you accomplished, the friends you made, and the impact that your school had on you. Whether the year went like it wanted or not, you still made it and that is what you should be most proud of.

You did it!