Something that I have learned these past two years at Cal is that high school and college are two very distinct social spheres (duh, Luis). To further state the obvious, we see clear differences in course difficulty level, the amount of involvement professors have with students, the friends we make, and the amount of adorable squirrels. In this article, I will talk about one huge difference I’ve experienced: the sophomore slump.

According to an entry on Urban Dictionary, sophomore slump occurs during a college student's sophomore year (for the third time, duh), and refers to when a sophomore’s GPA drops after having a high GPA from their freshman year. However, personally, I think sophomore slump can refer to more than just your academics—a slump in emotional health, for example.

NOTE: Everything that I will write about now is my own personal experience and does not speak for everyone else.

My sophomore year in high school was the best of my 4 years there. I joined the men’s soccer varsity team, was cast as the male lead in my school’s drama production, and met two of my current best friends. My grades in my sophomore year were the highest in my high school career. My teachers were the friendliest adults I had met, and the amount of time they invested in seeing me succeed was amazing. Ultimately, my high school sophomore year was the year that I had the most fun in, received the most support from my teachers, and was the year I sort of made myself “known” in my school. My sophomore self was the happiest teenager that you could meet.

4 years later, I find myself experiencing an emotional slump at UC Berkeley. I am still on a varsity team (Quidditch instead of soccer), my academic grades are higher than ever (relative to the 2 years I’ve been here), and I still find myself in the company of people I can consider best friends. In fact, upon meeting me for the first time, it may seem that my life is pretty great; not only am I living with the aforementioned qualities, but also, I have a stable job, I own a car, I live near my hometown so homesickness is unknown to me, and the people I consider friends are some of the nicest, most unique people ever. Despite all of these fortunate aspects of my life, I still found myself struggling with mental health problems.

Depression and anxiety had been taking a toll on my life. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I once was feeling so overwhelmed with my thoughts that at my job, as I was folding sweaters, I began to cry. Another occasion, more recently, I found myself getting extremely upset because I thought I was taking too long in ordering my food at a restaurant. There have been countless nights in which I pulled all-nighters not because I had to study, but because I just could not find the peace in my thoughts to fall asleep. There have been times in which I would sit in my room staring at my ceiling just because I did not find the motivation to leave my room. My best friend has witnessed me cry for multiple reasons; once we were in her room and i was just laying on her floor crying for very insignificant reasons, and she did not know what to do. I had began to skip my classes and stopped going to my other out-of-school activities because I just could not find the motivation to do anything. The spunky and optimistic 15 year old I was in high school was no more.

As I said before, I recognize that my life is not unfortunate. However, I just could not understand what led me into this emotional state. What took me from having the most fun in high school to considering dropping out of Cal?

Simply put: I have been trying to live my life in a way that would make othershappy.

People-pleasing is something I have done my whole life, so now it is no surprise to me that in college—where I am surrounded by more people and am involved in more activities and social spheres—I increased the amount of decisions I make for the benefit of others. I could go on for hours explaining how and why I know that people pleasing ultimately triggered the mental health problems I currently face, but that is not why I decided to write about my sophomore slump.

I wrote this to serve as a reminder for everyone. Emotional slumps can happen to everyone, mine just so happened to be during my sophomore year. It is important to take care of yourself and to put yourself first. After all, you are living your life—not your peers’.

Not everyone is a people pleaser, but at the same time, not everyone places importance on his or her own well-being. I place too much importance on how others think of me, some may place too much importance on how their grade defines their life, and others may place too much importance on how finances affect them. Everyone has his or her life struggle, but everyone also needs to look out for him or herself.

College and high school may be different—college is much harder. Try not to let the pressures of college (or adulthood, really) drag you down. Surround yourself with great people (trust me, they have helped me so much). Take breaks every so often. Look out for yourself. By putting your life and your well-being first, you can ultimately avoid the sophomore slump I experienced.