Dear Freshman,
Are you so excited?! You should be! College is a blast. It's true that going off to college comes with a lot of expectations. I'm sure you expect to become best friends with your roommate, have a blast at football games and homecoming, feel like you actually get to take classes you care about, maybe meet the love of your life, etc. College also comes with a lot of promises. "College will be the best four years of your life." "The friends you make in college will stay with you the rest of your life." "You're going to blossom into the person you're going to be in college." Any of this sound familiar?
SPOILER ALERT: All of this and more will happen (probably). Yay!
WARNING: It probably won't all happen right away. And at times, you will be disappointed.
It's easy to go into your freshman year with the highest of expectations. Many people do and they experience these disappointments at some point or another and still come out of it saying things like, "That was the best four years of my life!". So don't worry!
But in the mean time, there are a few things that you should hear, things that I wish I understood a little better a year ago when I was an incoming Freshman.
It's okay if your random roommate doesn't become your best friend. Even if your roommate ends up being your polar opposite, see it as an opportunity to get to know and understand people different than you! Along similar lines, don't be disheartened if you don't immediately find your "group." It's scary going to a new place not knowing anyone, I get it. But it's better to be a little picky and find the best friends for you. Don't settle and be okay with spending some quality time with yourself. Many times it's a blessing in disguise.
Now, let's talk a little about the actual college part of college...the part where you get to take classes with brilliant and enlightening professors and be challenged and expand your ways of thinking! It really is as wonderful as it sounds. What I'm trying to say is don't waste this opportunity. Don't let yourself be so preoccupied in everything else college is about to miss out on giving your classes, your professors, and yourselves the 110% they deserve. This is the part you or your parents are paying for after all.
Let me leave you with this: College is wonderful. It's full of ups and downs as life always is. You really will meet great people who challenge and grow you and people who click with you in every way. You really will blossom into a person different from who you are now and different from who you'll be 10 years from now. And college really will be some of the best years of your life. So open your eyes, open your hearts, open your minds and try not to be distracted by your expectations while you could be having one of the best years of your life.
God Bless. And good luck!
