In the fall, I’ll be starting my senior year of college. It’s been a crazy ride for sure, but I’ve grown so much as a person and I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for that. College changes you whether you like it or not. Either you run from this change or you embrace it. I’ve decided to embrace it.
Coming into college as a freshman I was the shy girl who didn’t talk in high school that wasn’t ready to leave her parents, so I chose a school that I could commute to. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and the thought of actually having to go to work after college made me sick. I desperately wanted to make a lot of new friends and change who I was in college. This didn’t really work out for me during my freshman year, I was still talking to the girls from high school that I thought were my “friends” and I was still crying over my ex-boyfriend that dumped me before prom a few months back.
I made a few acquaintances in some of my gen-ed classes but nobody that I wanted to hang out with. I was heartbroken and very eager to find a boyfriend, two things that don’t mix. I was insecure and I was trying really hard to fit in somewhere, with no success. I just tolerated school when I was in high school and I was starting off the same way in college. I was taking a bunch of business classes my first semester just because I needed to take some classes. I had a professor for my gen-ed speech class that really made an impression on me though.
She was strict and she really taught me how to adapt to college. She convinced me to take a communication class my second semester because she was a communication teacher, so I thought “why not?” I still hadn’t made any real friends though. During my sole communication class during that second semester I realized that I like the class and I liked what we did in that class, so before the end of that semester I changed my major to communication and media arts.
During my sophomore year, I was still confused and alone even though I had an actual major. I did befriend a couple of my teammates that were in my major as well, so I had a few new friends. My second semester sophomore year was when a lot of things changed; my best friend from high school transferred colleges and left for Indiana, I started to become good friends with a guy from one of my major classes and I was becoming more involved in my major’s media clubs. I had gotten really involved in our school’s television news show and I made a few decent friends through that. I stayed far away from the upperclassmen in my major because they were pretty cliquey.
At the end of my sophomore year, I started dating that guy from my major that I had become good friends with. That’s when it all started to change. He became my best friend over the summer, I had never had anyone that wanted to go and do fun things with me like he did, it was a nice change of pace for the girl that sat at home and hung out with her family every night. We are the same person (we share a brain honestly) and he made me forget my shyness because he is pretty outgoing.
When we came back to school last fall for my junior year and his senior year, it’s like the whole major changed after the seniors graduated. We all started to become really good friends while I started to be more outgoing in my classes and with others. I became comfortable doing class presentations and I have gained a lot more self-confidence. I started to get really into my classes and my schoolwork. I became best-friends with a group of five other girls from my major and I have never had a group of friends that I know would be there through anything. I finally got the courage to end relationships with “friends” that I knew were bad for me. I couldn’t be happier with this change either.
Getting ready to go into my senior year, I have become way more confident in my abilities and in myself. I have become really focused on my major and my future career, all while having the time of my life with the best friends that I have made this year. I am ready to hit it hard this final year and to show the world the talents and the confidence that I now have. I love my boyfriend and my best friends and I thank them for the continued support, I wouldn’t have survived these semesters without them. College changes you, and I would say it’s for the better. Three years ago when I walked onto campus for my first college class I would have never believed that I would become the girl I am today.
