As you begin your journey into college, you experience so much in such a short amount of time. You experience the art of starting over. It sounds great, right? You get to start over and change anything you want, but sometimes you lose yourself in the process.

If you're like me, you want to be involved in everything. As soon as something interests you, you try to make it work and somehow fit it into your already busy schedule. My advice for those who are a lot like me is to not overwhelm yourself like I did. Sometimes I come back from a long day of working on campus, three club meetings, and dance rehearsal only to do my homework until the wee hours of the morning and barely get a couple hours of sleep. Keep in mind this just continues to repeat itself. Looking back at it now, although I had a great experience doing all that, I missed a lot. I missed those late night movie nights, pod bonding, and trips to get late night snacks.

That's another thing, the people in your pod or hall are worth getting to know. Keeping my door open this first year is probably the best thing I could've done. That first week I realized that all these girls surrounding me may have come from different backgrounds and different places, but we all have similarities. It was amazing to think that I started off knowing nothing about these people, and by the time I left I could tell you some of the most personal things about them. I also have to thank these girls for getting me through the year in general. There were many times I would storm in on the verge of a mental breakdown and they would just help me relax. These girls are some of the greatest people you will meet, you learn a lot from each other. Your pod-mates, as I call them, become family. It gets really hard to leave knowing that next year you're going to have a new pod family.

If I'm being completely, and utterly honest, this fresh start is what a lot of 18-year-olds need. I needed it. I needed that push to start my own life and that little inch of trying to figure out who I am. I like to think that I'm different now than I was in high school. In high school, I was this quiet little thing that was very shy. I didn't like to always have attention on me and I feared being in the spotlight for too long for fear I would make a silly mistake. Now, I like to think that I have just embraced my bright colors. I've come to the conclusion that people are going to think what they will, so why not give them something to talk about? I've learned that I would rather be involved rather than sit back and watch things happen while disagreeing with their decisions. I've discovered I stink at making decisions and like all college students, contemplate changing my major every five seconds. But I guess all major decisions in life come in time.

So maybe I haven't completely figured out who I am and what I'm going to do with my life yet... But I still have three more years!