Going into my sophomore year of college, I thought I knew it all. Freshman year was tough, and it was definitely a new, stressful (but still fun), life-changing experience for me. But now I was past that. I knew what college tests were like, and I knew how to handle the social aspect of college along with the academic aspect. Now, almost two months later, I’m realizing that having it “all figured out” is a totally unrealistic expectation. I still honestly don’t know what’s going on sometimes. Does anyone really know what they’re doing?

College is a lot different from high school, especially academically. It’s a huge step up, and requires a lot more concentration and dedication to schoolwork and studying. It’s easy to slip into feeling like you know what you need to do and then find out later that you didn’t study as much as you needed to for a test or didn’t put enough pressure on yourself to attend class or go to office hours, etc. Even though it gets easier throughout the years as your experience in college grows (I hope), I think it’s important to treat every year like freshman year. Go into tests knowing that you studied your absolute hardest. Put pressure on yourself to perform well and show up every day ready to put your best foot forward. Life doesn’t get any easier; it just gets more routine.

For all the freshmen wondering why professors assume you have the whole college thing figured out already, or fretting about how you still don’t know where buildings are on campus or how the grading system in college really works, please don’t panic. Even as a sophomore, I still need advice too. There’s a certain beauty in the struggle of college. Even though it may seem the opposite, no one truly knows what they’re doing, and everyone is under the same pressure to be expected to figure out as soon as they get to school what they want to dedicate the rest of their lives to. As a 19-year-old, that’s hard! We’re expected to immediately choose classes relating to a major that we think we might be interested in that will benefit us for grad school, professional school, or a job right out of college. All of high school is spent preparing for college, and then upon getting in, we’re supposed to know immediately what we want our lives to be after college. And although many students (including myself) have dreams and goals of what we want to be when we grow up and what we want to do post-undergrad, life doesn’t always seem to work in a straight path like that. There are struggles along the way. Not everything is as easy as it seemed when we were little. That doesn’t make the struggle any less worth it, but it does taint your view on what the “real world” that we fantasized about growing up is really like.

College is hard, and doing well isn’t easy. Grades can be, but aren’t always, indicative of your intelligence, and no one should be fully expected to know what they’re doing at all times. I say as long as every college student has a few goals for what they want to accomplish throughout and after undergrad, they’re doing pretty well. Learning new things is the most important aspect of college and this period involves a huge time of growth and of trying to figure out yourself (especially your new “adult” self). Beyond that, there's not room for much else, let alone being able to figure out the rest of your life and the work that comes with that.

If you’re in college, then I wish you all the best. I hope you’re enjoying your school as much as I’m enjoying mine, and I hope you do figure out exactly what you want to do as early as you can. But if it takes time to figure it out, don't fret and take the time to explore your interests. Never let people tell you that your goals aren’t attainable, and always give your best effort. What more can you do?