It’s the second semester of my sophomore year and I’m feeling zero motivation to do absolutely anything. The long 3 a.m. study nights, 7:30 a.m. wake up calls, and weekly quizzes and exams have finally caught up to me and I’m just tired. I never have time to do anything that I want to do. A typical night consists of studying relentlessly for an anatomy quiz and narrowly avoiding binge watching anything and everything on Netflix. During these long nights I always wonder was it always like this? Was freshman year this tiring? The honest answer is probably. But in my almost two years of college my thinking and goals have changed due to my college experiences.

College is simultaneously a blessing and a curse. The classes you take in your first four semesters really help develop your interests, but while your interests are developing, your goals are slowly changing. The goals you had your first semester have done a 180 and suddenly that four year plan you once fixated on is now a six year plan with road blocks and an unforeseeable end. As your plans change and the classes get harder (because that’s what they do), you lose motivation. You stay up until three in the morning having existential crises with friends about whether you’re doing the right thing and if college is actually for you. All the while still not having time to do the stuff you want to on a daily basis. A lot of people will just attribute this to growing up. I refuse to believe that. "Sophomore slump" is a real thing, and we’re totally feeling it.

So, you hit this sophomore slump, which is when you had such a rockin’ freshman year that totally blew high school out of the water, but then you peak and your sophomore year is slightly less than average. Almost all my friends are feeling it among a chorus of, “Just one more month!” and, “I just can’t do it anymore!” or my personal favorite, “I’ll just take an L for the day.” We long for the real world. We long for jobs and being active among our peers and elders. We long for adventure and traveling. Most of all we long for the reality of being able to apply all this valuable information we’ve been learning since we started school.

For a while, I was bummed out by this. Although I’ve done so much in my two years of college, there’s just so much I haven’t been able to complete as well. I felt like my life was going nowhere and I was just going through the motions. I let myself be pulled into this sophomore slump with no way out and no plan to change. One night, my life spiraled enough (one existential crisis too many) that I not just craved a change, but my future depended on it. I signed up for every study abroad program I could get my hands on, researched and applied for every internship that I was partially qualified for, and Google-searched every option I had for the up-coming semester.

For several weeks, nothing really happened and I continued through the same motions as my friends. Eat, sleep, study (sneak an episode of "Jane The Virgin" in while eating). Then one day, at 1:30 in the afternoon, still sitting in bed in my pajamas avoiding my phone and laptop, everything changed all at once. I got an email verifying that my whole life was about to be turned upside down again and just like that the sophomore slump wasn’t that draining. Now, rather than counting down the days until the end of the semester, I was counting down the days until I got to embark on this amazing adventure of my own. My "sophomore slump" slid perfectly into a "comeback of the year."

So for those of you feeling the "sophomore slump," try and find your "comeback of the year." Better yet, start out small and find your personal "comeback of the week." Pick up a hobby, do something that makes you feel amazing or take that hour to watch your favorite show. I’ve realized that without these moments for ourselves, there is no reason for the other parts of the day. You can only work so hard for so long before there’s no more ‘you’ left to put into it. Afterwards you can slowly work on changing your life around. The sophomore slump won’t last forever, but instead of waiting it out and feeling like you have be in the slump, take the initiative to move forward.

And hey, even if you’re stuck in the slump, there’s only one more month.