Aah, sophomore year of college! The excitement of getting out of high school has stymied and the freshman awkwardness has subsided: time to get down to business! Or so you told yourself at the beginning of the year.
But then, sophomore slump happened.
1. Living in oblivion
This was you...at the beginning of the sophomore year. Yes! Back when you were still a carefree soul, having spent an amazing summer and ready to go back to school, In fact, your Instagram probably has pictures of you from first day of the semester with an even bigger smile on your face. Those horror stories the jaded upperclassmen (the ones you mistook for caffeine-fueled zombies in the library) told you, just didn't seem possible. Just like the ridiculously pink flower in the picture above, you were determined to shine.
2. Realization dawns.
It has been a week or two since it all started, the madness. You slowly realize that the library zombies were right: the sophomore slump is real!. You can feel the enthusiasm of freshman year slowly fade away as you suddenly find yourself enrolled in 200 level courses with professors who expect you to read 200 pages overnight AND write a "short" three and a half pages reading response along with studying for a test, writing another five pages long paper and discovering a cure for AIDS while you're at it. All those on-campus activities that seemed so cool the year before seems repetitive and boring. And your stomach has developed an aversion for dining hall food. Worst of all, the novelty of being the "babies" having gone away, people now expect you to KNOW things! YIKES!
3. It continues...
You think you've hit a rough patch. "It'll all get better in a few days," you said to yourself. Everyday, you wake up to see "GET YOUR LIFE TOGETHER" written at the top of your to-do list and you think, "Today is going to be the day I save my future". No. No you won't. Not today, not tomorrow,and certainly not next week. Because every time you start remembering how much you have to do and how little motivation you have to actually do it, you die a little on the inside. It started with the one yawn in class and slowly but surely, it has now reached the point where the first thing you do after waking up in the morning is debate whether you should go to class. Most of the conversations you have with your friends involve complaining about the work you have and comparing the level of procrastination you've achieved. When the summer internships/jobs you're applying and writing a cover letter for (at 2 am in the morning) require "young, dynamic, vibrant individuals", you shed a few tears knowing that you'll never be that young again.
4. Resignation
I know! This cat speaks to your soul right now. Just like our little feline friend here, you've given up on dazzling the world with your brilliance (as you had thought you'd do when you came to college) and just want to be left alone to catch up on some Netflix because let's be real, Netflix is the only bae. But even then, responsibilities get in the way. So you glare at them disdainfully (see example above) and wish they would just disappear. Homework? Exams? Work? Athletics? Declaring your major that will define the rest of your life? How about NO. The world just doesn't seem to understand that you are not ready to be an adult. Even the state doesn't think you're old enough to drink right now! How are you supposed to decide on whether you should major in English or Biology if you don't have a bottle of wine to mull over it? Try telling that to college, though.
5. Acceptance
Until junior year rolls in and hits you in the face with the Junior Slump (I may have made up the name but it's real, okay?).
Welcome to the adult world! It sucks!
