As I set back and think about my first year of college, I realize that I learned a lot of important lessons. I am four weeks into my sophomore year of college, and I am learning that I am not the same person I was last year at this time. During this past year, I took time to work on who I am. There are five important things that I learned during my freshman year that I think all freshmen should know.
1. Change
No matter what you try to do, change will always happen. Change is all around us. The big changes that you face during the first month of school is about adjusting to the college life or getting used to new classes and a new schedule. Also, your relationship with your family will change, there will be a time when you are annoyed with them for always wanting to hear about your experiences at college, but you have to remember that they are experiencing this change in a different way than you are. Make sure you accept the change that is happening around you because it can lead you to some of the best decisions that you made in a while. Just remember that it is not about the change that is happening, it is about how you are handling the change.
2. Get involved
College is about making the most of your time here. Getting involved does not just mean joining a sport, it can be joining clubs or attending school events. By joining clubs and sports you get to met amazing people that go to your school and have a chance to learn about them. Also, joining clubs and sports teams might help you find a new interest that you had no know you could enjoy. Attending school events will help you know what is going on throughout your school. School events could be watching sports events, doing your floor activities that your RA puts on, and other activities that your school puts on. Getting involved lets you grow as person, and helps you met new people and find a new interest.
3. Friends
During your freshman year, you will lose friends and make new friends. Your high school friends are going to be experiencing the college life with you and you guys might outgrow each other, which is fine. You are going to think you are lost without those high school friends because you are sharing so many high school memories with them, but new friends await you at college. During your time in college, you are going to make new friends. You may not stay friends with during the full year of school or you might end up becoming friends with them during the school year. Your friends during college are the ones that are going to be the one's you have for the most of your life in the future.
4. Your happiness matters
During college, you need to take time and focus on yourself and your happiness. If you can't figure out how to make yourself happy, you are going to struggle some at college. By making sure your met your goal of being happy can take time in certain areas or less time. Making yourself happy could be cutting off your hair, getting a piercing or tattoo that you always wanted, doing really well in school, or finding out new things about yourself. All those things happened to me from my freshman year to now. By taking the time to focus on myself I took changes that I did not think that I would have and now I'm happy with the way my life is turning out to be.
5. Prioritizing Responsibilities
Your responsibilities during college are completely different than high school. You are accepted to remember when exams, projects, papers, or homework assignments are due. There is going to be times when you have a lot of assignments and exams due at the same time and you won't be able to have all the free time that you want. If you want to go out with your friends, or party, it is better to make sure you have most or all of your assignments completed because it will make you feel better instead of worrying about the time you lost. If you do not prioritize your schedule you can easily miss an assignment or end up failing your classes.
College is a fun experience to have, but it comes with some important life lessons that we learn during our first year of school all the way to the last day of college. Enjoy being a college student before we have to go out into the real world and work.
