Tuesday August 30th was my first day of my next chapter in education. I parked my car in the parking garage (my undergraduate school didn’t have one of those, that’s for sure) and made my way onto campus.

I was lost. The University of Southern Maine Portland campus is nestled into the city and the parking garage was only feet from the I-95. In only a couple of minutes my senses were overloaded. I’ve been living right off route 1 in Scarborough for quite some time now, but I was still not used to the massive amounts of people and traffic that southern Maine had exposed me to.

I took a deep breath and ventured towards campus. I was stopped thirty seconds into my journey by a young man asking if he could use my phone. Of course I said yes. When I told my boyfriend this story later he told me I should probably not do that again because not everyone in Portland will be a nice guy. It was at that moment that I realized I’m not at the University of Maine at Farmington. I’m not on a campus where pretty much everyone knows everyone. This is a new world to me.

It took me a staggering fifteen minutes to find the building I needed to be in. I was too scared to ask anyone for directions. When I finally found my classroom I watched as classmates were talking already, having been friends in undergraduate at USM. It made my anxiety worse. I stayed quiet and kept my eyes on my desk, in silence. Finally a girl set beside me and I was happy to have someone to talk to. It was weird to not be surrounded by familar faces, to not be able to have conversations with the same classmates I’d been with since my freshman year of college. Everything was new. And it was terrifying.

I went into graduate school thinking it would be hard. I had that part right. I’m only taking two classes and I already have 6 different psychology articles I need to read. However, the first thing my Social Work professor did was have us introduce ourselves to the class and to be sure to add in a fun, unique fact about us. I learned that I had a classmate allergic to the cold (literally, has anaphylaxis when exposed to the cold), a classmate expecting her first child, a classmate with synethesia and that I was the only one without a middle name. The next thing we did before even discussing classwork was play bingo to get to know each other even more. I always expected that these kind of games would go away once I hit graduate school- and maybe they will with other professors- but for now I enjoy them.

Graduate school isn’t much different than undergraduate. At least not yet. My first day at USM was incredibly similar to my frist day at UMF. It was anxiety-filled, it was terrifying and I wandered around for a long time before I found where I needed to be. There were new faces, some not as friendly as others, there were new sounds and new smells that I will have to get accustomed to. There are new classrooms and new professors. There are new bookstore workers, ones who can’t remember when I was a freshman or who can’t believe I’m graduating all ready.

Overall, I am not ready to pass judgment on graduate school. I’m skeptical to say that it will be better for me than undergraduate, because honestly I thought I would love college and I didn’t. I never found the social group that I needed so much to get out of my own way. I have my doubts that graduate school will be much different especially where I won’t be on campus much at all. I will continue to pursue my dream of being a social worker someday because it’s my dream to help people.