Thinking back to freshman year, even just as a sophomore, I'm shocked at how much I've changed and how differently I now see the world.

I went into college more than a year ago thinking I understood everything about my life, myself, and others. I was confident that college wouldn't change me- couldn't change me- because I was too self-assured and independent to let myself be changed. I didn't really realize going in how afraid I was of change and how resistant I was to opening my mind to different ways of thinking until it actually started to happen.

To anyone about to start their freshman year of college, I can't stress enough how much you will get out of your freshman year; enjoy it. Make tons of friends, completely different from the ones you've had in the past, and ones that are comfortable and familiar. I've definitely learned that the friends you make the first week may not be the ones at your side during graduation, but I've also learned that maybe they will be. The only way to find out is to start talking.

I learned the virtue in joining clubs. Not just the ones in which you had an interest during high school, but completely new, intimidating clubs that take you horseback riding or print your work on global media. You won't regret the new opportunities these friends, advisors, and contacts will open for you, and the community feel and leadership experiences are always worthwhile takeaways.

I learned, and would absolutely recommend, to take classes with subject matter about which you're not completely confident. Political science was never a subject I thought I would want to pursue a degree in, but I consider myself so lucky to have taken it first semester freshman year. It opened up my mind to a new way of questioning that I now apply to all of my classes and any sort of judgment I may need to make. It also stirred in me a passion for learning more about politics and the government, one that continues to grow to this day.

I'm glad I took the class, too, because it taught me that I really don't know anything after all. I left high school thinking I already knew everything I needed to know about school; college would just refine my knowledge. I was so wrong. I learned more new content, styles of writing, ways to read, and methods of questioning in one year than I did during my entire life. It blows my mind how different my thought process and decision-making skills are now, compared to a year ago.

But I also learned how insignificant my life really is, in the grand scheme of things. Going from a school filled with faces you've seen every day since kindergarten to being just one of a thousand faces to walk the campus every day, you definitely lose some of the superiority complex that came with being a senior. You're no longer the smart one or the strong one or the funny one; you're just another face in the crowd, working towards the same things, going through the same problems. It's startling at first how little interest the people you see in class every day have in you anymore, but soon it humbles you.

Because that's just like one of the greatest things I learned in college; no one really cares about you like you think they do. No one cares what you look like or how you act or what you choose to be. Here, I am infinitely more comfortable with myself and how I look and how I act because there is so much less pressure to fit a certain stereotype or cater to other people's opinions. I've become more free, and as a result, feel a lot better about myself and where I'm going in life.

I've changed from an excited, but closed-minded first year into a more driven and freer-thinking sophomore. As I keep going deeper into my college career I only continue to change little by little in ways I don't even recognize- that is, until I think all the way back to the bright-eyed freshman on the first day.