The notorious freshman year falls upon us again.

An overtly dreaded year of school that I have been waiting years to experience.

It’s ironic; we spend all of high school trying to be anything but freshman. Freshman year for most comprised of being anything but freshman, of acting like upperclassmen, going along with seniority, waiting anxiously for junior and senior year. Until we actually become that age, become a senior even though as a freshman we never really pictured that happening to us. We knew it would happen, but before that, it had always been ‘when I’m a senior’. When the time to be an upperclassman arrives, the title is suddenly embraced as the paradoxical desire of returning to freshman year arrives through college applications and school tours.

High school is funny because it seems from the moment we arrive as freshmen, we want to get out and be something else. High school is spent getting away from freshman year, out of high school, and graduating. A lot of people spend all of high school looking forward to college. To be a freshman again.

I realize high school and college are very different, but in the end, they’re both school. I remember going into my freshman year of high school pretty nonchalant, not really having any expectations except for the stereotypical description that freshman year sucks. I wasn’t worried because it was pretty much all the same people. We were all just another year older going on to another year of school.

The evident transformation from high school freshman year to college freshman year for me is strikingly palpable. Many of the things I thought I could never do as a freshman or didn’t even imagine were possible for me, I have now done or plan to do.

For little fourteen year old me, the thought of leaving home for any longer than a few weeks in summer, freaked me out. My first ballet summer intensive was right before highschool and I was so home-sick. I called home often and vowed I would never leave home for all of high school. For my junior and senior year, I ended up attending an arts boarding school for dance, a ten hour drive from home, and it was amazing. I grew so much more than I could have fantasized and looking back, I can now see how much as a high school freshman I minimized myself. I took the freshman role and held myself back. I’ve realized age really doesn’t matter when it comes to ambition. If the drive and dedication is there, as cliche as it sounds, it is possible.

I’m not just some freshman again. I’m a college student looking to experience college for everything it is, and I can not wait.

I am so ready to be a college freshman.

To meet all the people, choose and take a huge assortment of classes, explore the renowned New York City, socialize with a widely diverse student body, check out everything, and finally just be there.

I’ve been looking forward to this year for years. Barnard College of Columbia University is my dream school. And as a freshman, I have the thrill of experiencing it all for the first time.

Freshman year is good. Freshman year is new and exciting and it marks a new start to big experience.