“Congratulations and welcome to American University”
My heartbeat was echoing in my ears, as I ran up the stairs to tell my mom that I got in. When I told her she immediately grasped me and we started jumping up and down in glee, that yes I was going to my dream school. American was a great school for me the small campus and small class sizes were a dream. I felt the small school atmosphere would be enriching to me.
I started liking all the Facebook pages associated with the school, joined the Facebook Class of 2019 group and participated in it. I went onto the campus a week earlier before class started and walked around and loved the beautiful campus. I was giddy with anticipation that my four years was going to be spent on the beautiful American University campus with people, I had yet to meet.
However, when I entered my new environment, I progressively became unhappier. I joined activities to feel apart of the new atmosphere like the student-run newspaper, "The Eagle," and the school's poetry slam group. However, the more I tried to accept this new fate, the more depressed I got. I had friends from high school who enjoyed their universities, who were quickly getting assimilated and enforcing the spirit. Meanwhile, I was walking around campus like a zombie feeling nothing towards my new school, just watching everyone enjoy their college experience. Halfway through my semester, I decided I would transfer.
As soon as I started filling out my applications, doubts of leaving American started invading my mind what if i hate my new school? Living in D.C. is a bonus, what am i going to without having a full range of internships to choose from?I even considered changing my major at one point so I didn't have transfer. But when it came down to the question, if I was truly happy at American, the obvious answer was no. My year at American was depressing, simply put. During that year I hated everything loved. Everyone who knows me knows that poetry is everything to me, but when I tried joining my school's poetry club. I felt like i could no longer write poetry, I started doubting my ability to produce anything. I even started believing that my glory days of when I was most proud of myself would be in high school. I was in disbelief that an 18-year-old me, who hasn't even begun life was already doubting that it could be better.
I said I didn’t care too many times that I finally realized that I cared and that I didn’t like my school. I cared that I was lonely and I cared that I felt like I was wasting my future and I cared that I was feeling numb in college and was stumping my growth as a person. That feeling of numbness was slowly replaced by utter disbelief that my college experience wasn't a semblance of what I thought it would be. My decision to transfer was my decision to take my life into my own hands, to be an adult and make an executive decision to grow in a way to would make me proud in the next four or 20 years. I needed to get out of an environment where I felt like I was losing the essence of who I was and am.
What I'm really trying to say here is that if you’re really unhappy at a certain point in your life make a change. It is necessary to your growth.
