This might be relatable on multiple fronts.
How I made it this far, I'll never know, but with three weeks left of the semester, I'm ready for it to be over.
The first year of college was, in short, an experience. Living away from home, meeting types of people I never knew existed, and quickly realizing that whatever study habits I'd adopted in high school were not, in any sense, going to work here.
It's not terrible, and I know so often we exaggerate how difficult academics are and enjoy complaining about not having time for anything even when procrastinating has more to do with it than the workload. But still.
College has been a learning experience.
Perhaps this end of the semester wraps up much better than the last semester did - scatterbrained, exhausted, and thoroughly satisfied with finishing exams to the best of my ability is a little more than I can hope for with the closing of the first year of college.
I am tired, and worried, and a little hungry after I had to take a nap for lunch...but I am glad I am here. The learning experience is often so frustrating in the moment, because it would be so satisfying if I could just be good and knowledgeable at something without having to learn it (wouldn't we all?).
The experience of learning is not always the smoothest, and in a world that glorifies natural abilities over much anything else, I can get so disillusioned by the fact that I am not very good at things on the first try. It's discouraging, it's embarrassing, and makes me honestly consider why I even bother.
I'd like to think college is a lot like the learning process.
So often we want to go through college perfectly, studying and doing well and graduating with the wholesome satisfaction that you did everything right.
But where's the learning in that?
Of course, college is about academics, but is it not the process of learning in which we find the best way we work? Practicing and studying, and learning who we are and how we study, is that not a part of the journey?
I find myself writing articles such as these not to seem as if I have everything together — because I don't. But I think that writing these things down encourages myself as much as it encourages those that enjoy reading them.
