It’s crazy how the choices you make can impact the rest of your life. Starting Junior year, your Guidance Counselor starts throwing college brochures at you and tells you that you have a lot of work to do. You know that it’s going to be a long process but you really had no idea what was in store. As you sit in his office, you don’t realize how soon your high school career will be over. You leave his office, walk out of the Guidance Department and get onto the bus to go home. You start to realize that every choice you make is going to impact your future.

Then the real pressure starts. With SAT’s, ACT’s regular class work and Driver’s Ed, you nearly want to pull your hair out. You spend 60% of your time studying and the other 40% looking at Naviance. You look at how many people applied in your class and the statistics from previous years. You cringe if there’s a bad acceptance rate. You have to choose which test you’re going to take. Are you good with time management? Or is that an issue? You sign up for the December ACT and patiently wait for your scores.

In the meantime, you make your list of your reach schools, target schools, and safety schools. You categorize your choices by campus size, how many students there are in each class, and if it’s a ra-ra school or not. You get your pro’s and con’s of each and every school. Distance from home, location, attractions nearby, affordability, how good your program is. You stalk each and every bookstore and pick out the clothing you want from each potential school.

After your list is final, you head to the Common App the summer before your Senior year. You’re asked about your race, religion and basically the most irrelevant and repetitive questions. You make your Dad search for your social security number and then you’re told to memorize it because, “you’re going to need to know it.” You sit there and write a million drafts of your college essay, and then write 100’s of supplements. Why do you want to come here? Tell us about yourself. What adversities did you face? How are you better qualified than others applying? What inspired you to apply here? You bullshit every question to make yourself sound unique and interesting.

Then you sit down and try to remember all the times you volunteered at the Purim Carnival, or volunteered to tutor your neighbor and try your best to make it sound super important for your resume. You print it out and the format is messed up. Just your luck. So you sit there on Word and try to fix it and get totally frustrated. Then you realize you forgot to put on your board position that you had in an Honor Society last year… Well, shit.

It’s come to the time to send in the applications. Everything’s in order. You’re ready. You virtually sign your signature on common app. Get the credit card out. Do they accept Amex? OK, good they do… And you do it, you push submit. You’ve applied to college.

But oh no no, honey. You’re not nearly done. Time to send in those SAT and ACT scores. But don’t forget that you can superscore. $475 dollars later, you’ve sent your test scores to all 15 of your schools. You start feeling relieved. For the moment anyway…

Just wait, now you logon to the college’s portal EVERYDAY to see if they updated anything. You run home from school EVERYDAY and check your mailbox. You check your email 1000 times a day just to make sure you didn’t miss any acceptance letters. You drive your parents absolutely INSANE about hearing back from schools. They’re just as stressed about it as you are. At this point, it’s just a waiting game.

By this time, Senior year is halfway over. Your senioritis is kicking in. People are committing to colleges. Early Decision letters have come in. You get so nervous. You need to clear your mind. You get in the car and go on a drive.

You get all your acceptances back. You get a notification that you’ve been added to the “Class of …” GroupMe and Facebook group. You stalk everyone you can find. Oh, this person is camp friends with her. Interesting. Let’s keep looking. You wonder if any of these people in the group are normal. You get nervous and mute the group chat because it’s just too weird.

You see that your best friend who can’t decide what she wants for dinner committed to college before you decided where you want to go to school. You feel the pressure… The pressure is ON. Your friends start going to meet-ups in the city. You hear crazy stories about their meet-ups that happened last weekend. And you get a little jealous because you have no idea where you’re going to end up.

Just when you think you’re ready to commit, you decide to visit the campus one more time. You see it, you love it. You know you belong there. You send in your deposit and post your Facebook status. The texts, likes, and cookie cakes start rolling in. You take a deep breath, and then proceed to buy every piece of clothing in the bookstore.

You see all the sweatshirts from possible colleges that you bought sitting in your closet. You give them away to the friends who are going to those schools. And you wear your school’s apparel with pride.

You’re at prom. You look around your table. You're surrounded by your best friends. You smile. You remember all the weekends you spent crying about what college you’re going to go to and realize that you should have been spending more time enjoying every last second of high school. You realize you only have a few months left with your best friends.

You sit at graduation. You wait for your name to be called. Your stomach hits the floor and your heart flutters a little. Do I grab with the right and shake with the left? I don’t know. Right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot. Don’t fall. Remember to smile.

June turns to July and July turns to August. You start packing up your childhood bedroom and you say your final goodbyes until fall break to the friends that you have seen you grow up. You look around your house one last time, you hug your dogs and get into the car and head out on your new journey.

You pull up to the campus and feel anxious, but a good anxious. It finally paid off. You’re a college student.

You start classes, and everything’s going smoothly. You take your first college exam and you ace it. You text in your family group chat and your Mom says “Woo!” and your Dad say’s “Way to go!”

You get homesick at times, and you’re constantly FaceTiming and texting your friends and family. You’re sick of dining hall food and can’t think of stomaching anymore of those greasy french fries. You look in the mirror and tell yourself that you’re going to go to the gym later instead of binge watching Netflix. But besides that, you love school.

You’re home for Thanksgiving break and everything feels like how you left it before you went away. Your bed is unusually low and you're not used to it. You don’t realize it, but first semester flew by. In a few weeks you’ll be home again.

You’re finals are over and you head back home. You say bye to the new friends, room and life that you’ve made and say “see ya next year!”

And just like that, first semester is over.

Life goes fast... Don’t let it slip away.