Before someone starts college, they're some crazy perceptions about what it might be like. They might imagine it to be a nonstop party or the place where they find "the one" or where they can sleep in until 2 p.m. and never do laundry.
Those crazy ideas may or may not happen exactly as the freshman version of yourself imagines, but in those four (sometimes five) years of school something amazing almost always happens, you transform. College is the place where everybody starts to become an adult. The place where they start to become the person they are going to be for the rest of their lives. College is for learning lessons, and most importantly making mistakes.
College is the place to test limits, to try new things. College is the only time in your life where it is almost acceptable to wear sweatpants out in public, take two or three naps a day, and to eat grilled cheese sandwiches for every meal. Now is the only time to figure out who you are by trying a million and one different ways to be a person. Being 19 years old is a gift, it's the time to find your voice. You have limited responsibilities, rules, and stresses. There is no time in your life like this.
College is the first time in your life where you're really alone. And honestly, it's scary. Use the fear of being on your own and challenge yourself to go outside your comfort zone. Go through recruitment, join a club, make friends with someone in your gen. eds, take a class that makes you work for a C, take a class on something that actually interests you. Spend too many nights out, sleep through alarms, follow ugly trends (so that you can laugh at yourself later), eat too much ice cream, and cram for exams. The not so smart choices you make in college form who you are after college. Laugh at yourself, grow and learn, turn every stupid choice into an amazing side-splitting story. You can't learn from sitting on the sidelines, or taking someone else's advice.
It's okay to change your mind. It's okay to change your major. You can start college wanting to be a nurse and end up studying business. That's okay. You can leave college still be totally unsure of what you want to be and that's okay.
College is going to be an amazing experience no matter what you do, find a path that makes you happy and makes you want to try. Do your best, and try your absolute hardest (but take some time to sleep) I guarantee college will go way too fast.
Last minute advice, take advantage of any activity that has free food.
