I am currently in the middle of my final exam week of my first year at a four year college. It seriously went by so much faster than I had ever anticipated. Everyone that has gone through high school or college always tells you that it flies by, but usually no one ever believes them until they themselves actually experience it. I have now experienced it in high school and now the beginning of college. It really does not feel like I am supposed to be going home for three months in just under a week. I feel like I am just packing to go home for a break during the year and I will be back in a couple of weeks, but definitely not months. I am surprised about how easily I went through the first year of classes as well. When I was a little kid I always thought that college was this far away place where you went after high school, and there were so many people there and the classes were the hardest thing than every other class that I had ever taken. Once I got here I realized that everything is so much bigger and scarier when you are seven. It was not that scary at all, and the classes were tougher (kinda) but you only had class twice or three times in a week.

College is actually so much more relaxed than I would have ever expected. The professors do not care if you do not come to class, they do not care if you did not write a paper, they are chill about a lot of stuff. Now I am not saying that they do not care about you doing well in their course, but they are allowing you to make your own decisions and discipline yourself to do the work. They will not hold your hand or hound you to get your paper in on time. Shoot, most of my professors put everything on the syllabus and when the due date came around they would collect it and if you did not read the syllabus in the first couple weeks you were basically screwed. Other professors weren't that extreme, they would typically remind you a couple weeks ahead of the due date but not by much. Moral of the story: if you were/are a slacker in high school and think that all your teachers for the rest of your educational career are going to hold your hand, you better wake up and change your ways before your parents fork over hundreds of thousands of dollars toward your higher education and you blow it.

The thing that I am going to miss the most is the people and the friendships that I have gained while here at college. Some friendships are more recent than others but I am glad to have found these people and I know they will be in my life for a long time. I will also miss dancing all the time becuase i didn't really start dancing regularly until I came to school. And the people on my team are one of a kind and I don't want to dance with anyone else.

I think that this year has been exciting and a huge learning experience for me. I have met so many new people, and gained so many friendships. I have thrived in classes I never thought I could thrive in. I have also dipped really low on the grading scale in a class, which is the most terrifying thing to happen to a organized, motivated person like myself. Overall, I am more than excited to go home but even more thrilled that I will be able to come back to school in the fall.