Hi first-years, and welcome to the adventure of a lifetime! By now it’s probably been a couple weeks since you've started your college career, and you are probably still grappling with how to handle all the new hurdles life has thrown your way. Everything is changing all at once and it can be one of the most equally thrilling and terrifying times of your life.

Go look in the mirror right now and reflect on the person you are in this moment. More likely than not, by the end of your time in college, you will be a changed person, a completely new individual with a whole fresh set of life experiences, stories, friendships, and lessons learned – and hopefully a little education thrown in along the way. College will hold some of the best and worst times of your life, and that is to be expected. You are becoming an adult, and with that comes some growing pains. The best advice I can extend to you is to not take life or yourself too seriously. Try not to plan out your entire future your first semester, because it wont turn out that way, I promise. You will probably change your major at least once, if not four, five, or six times. This is okay, it’s normal. Your interests will change, you will grow a lot, and as you grow, you might grow away from people you planned to have in your life forever. That’s okay too. You might end up hating your roommate, whether you came in strangers or best friends. Living in such close quarters with another person can put a strain on any relationship. Most if not all first-years will feel homesick at some point, so you don’t have to love college right away, feel like you have immediately found your place at your school, and never think of home again. It takes time to find your happiness, for everyone, and the people that seem like they have it all together usually don’t. Call your parents, tell them you miss and love them, because they miss you. Go to your classes, all of them, or at least try to. Yes, we all have made some less than fabulous choices the night before, and while getting out of bed and attending lecture the next morning after a night out may seem equivalent to torture, your grades will thank you. Join something; get involved, even if it doesn’t seem like something that you would ever be into. Try anything and everything. Something will eventually stick.

I am sure you have been given advice from countless people while embarking on your journey through higher education, but at the end of the day, the only one who can make your experiences worth something is you. Make your time in college count, live your life, and have fun doing it. At the end of the day, as long as you are doing what you love and are passionate about, and you’re having a good time, you can’t really go wrong. Good luck!