Dear incoming freshmen,
If you’re anything like I was this time last year, you’re full of excitement for the weeks to come. You just received your housing assignment, you’re beginning to get your textbooks and things for your dorm, and you’re finishing up your time at home with your family and friends. These next few weeks are going to be filled with so many emotions – from happiness to fear, sadness to joy. Get ready, it’s going to be a wild ride.
Very soon, you’ll be packing up the past eighteen years of your life. You’ll go through your room, looking at everything you gathered throughout high school. You’ll ponder what’s worth it to bring with you and what is better left at home. And very soon, you’ll load whatever you decide to bring with you up in a truck and drive to your new home. Upon arriving, you’ll be greeted by overly-friendly RA’s and other hall staff. They’ll quickly push you out of your car and into your dorm, and help you load those eighteen years of memories into a room otherwise considered the size of your closet. You’ll soon meet your roommate. He or she will be filled with the same emotions that you will be, and odds are, you’ll connect over similar interests and spend the next few months sharing the same kinds of experiences.
After an hour or two, your parents will have helped you unpack, and will soon be leaving. Your dad will be cutting jokes with your roommate’s parents, but the second he has to hug his daughter or son goodbye one last time, he will well up in tears. Your mother will be taking pictures of everything and crying – it’s hard for her to understand how her child could possibly be starting their freshman year of college already. Let them cry, and don’t be afraid to shed a tear or two yourself. You’ve only spent a few nights away from home for summer camps or sleepovers, and now you’re going to be away for a total of nine months. But don’t feel too sad, you’re about to embark on one of the most life-changing years ever.
The first few weeks will be awkward. You’ll get lost trying to find your way to class and you’ll be afraid to go anywhere without a pack of friends by your side. You’ll spend some nights curled up in bed wondering if you made the right decision, but don’t worry – mom is always a phone call away. You’re not going to truly feel like a college student for awhile. You don’t know the shortest paths to get to your classes and you still carry your room key around on your lanyard. After a short while, you’ll start to settle into classes and into campus, and you’ll soon realize how much you have to look forward to. Whoever said high school was the best years of your life was obviously lying.
Soon, months will have flown by. It will be mid-December, and your first finals week will be approaching you. You’ll spend every second of that week crammed in the library studying your brains out. But in the moments you’re not studying, you’ll find time to reflect. You’ll think about everything that’s happened to you these past few months – finding passion in your major, joining organizations you truly love, and finding friends you can’t imagine living without. You’ve always dreamed of these things happening, and now it’s a reality. Then you’ll go home for a month. Going back home will be scary. You’ve probably lost touch with your high school friends, and the streets may not feel the same as they used to. But in these moments back home you will discover that nothing about your hometown has changed – it was you that did the changing.
January will roll around, and second semester will soon begin. You’ll feel like part of the campus by then, and the reality of “I’m really a college student” will have already hit. But during the snowstorms, you’ll begin to dig a little deeper into what college has done to you. For one, it’s made you smarter. You used to think your high school biology and algebra classes were hard, but now you’re enrolled in 200 and 300 level courses and doing just fine. Your study habits have greatly increased. College has made you more independent. You’re able to walk on your own and make decisions for yourself. You don’t need someone to help you get through the day. College helped you let go of your past, and move on to your future. You’ve let go of everything from high school and the person you used to be. You’ve never been as prepared for the years ahead of you as you are now.
When spring rolls around and warm weather hits, nostalgia will come rolling right along with it. You’ll remember the last time you wore shorts and flip flops to class – those were some of your very first days on this campus. In this nostalgia you’ll find yourself looking back on moments. From the first day you spent with your future best friend, to the night you and a bunch of your floormates all went out to that crazy party. You’ll remember the moments in which you felt so young, and you felt so alive. Those were some of the best moments of your life so far. Cherish these moments. Days and nights like them aren’t going to happen forever.
Dear incoming freshmen, I wish I could be in your shoes again. I wish I could feel the way you do, so excited and nervous and unprepared for this next great chapter. You have no idea what’s about to come to you. When everything finally starts settling in, though, you’ll realize freshman year is one of the best. You were opened up to so many new opportunities, and the personal growth you’ve gone through is unremarkable. Now, you’re just a little older, but you’re really starting to find yourself. You’ve lived an entire nine months in a freshman dorm eating overpriced food and sleeping without air conditioning. You’ve lived with a roommate when you’re used to having a room to yourself. You’ve spent months without your dogs, your parents, or your siblings. You’ve found friends much greater than those you had in high school. You’ve learned to express yourself and your individuality and you’re finally somewhere where that individuality can be embraced. You’re studying for the career you’ve always dreamed of. And you know what? Your adventure is only beginning.
Heck, so is mine.
Love,
The Incoming Sophomore
