We hear it all the time- "Be yourself," "Never forget where you come from," and, "There's only one you, so don't waste it trying to be someone else." Even if we know and agree with these things, I've noticed that it's easier to simply acknowledge them than actually put them to practice in our lives.
When I first came to college last year, it was an overwhelming experience to say the least- and I'm sure most of us can agree. With so much information being thrown at you during Welcome Week by administration, new people and opportunities around every corner, you are faced with endless decisions to make. The opportunity of jumping at every shining moment, as though you're missing out on something major if you don't, is tempting. Especially for those of us who had our minds set on making the best out of college from the moment we stepped foot on campus.
Not that there is anything wrong with getting involved either, it's encouraged heavily by colleges and universities for a reason! Whether it is getting involved academically, with clubs/organizations, sports, or socially- immersing yourself within things that make you happy will, in turn, help lead to a happier life and smoother adjustment to college. However, it is no secret that making the adjustment to college can be hard as well. For first-years, it is not uncommon to see opportunities for counseling, as well as hear supportive comments from upperclassmen, offering company and advice for when they start to feel homesick or struggle with classes.
Because coming to college is so largely focused on everything your college and its community has to offer, we don't realize the large emphasis that is being placed on our surroundings. It is easy to let our own focus shift slowly from us as individuals, to everything that is happening around us. This entails being aware of what everyone else is doing and feeling, what events are occurring, and adopting the tendency to put good grades over everything, including ourselves.
Having a mindset that is accustomed to placing our surroundings as a top priority places ourselves as second, or even third. This is what begins to take a toll on how we view ourselves. Putting my surrounding environment as a top priority is something I experienced first hand last year- falling into the habit of basing how I felt about myself off of what happened around me throughout each day.
I'm not saying that I completely forgot "who I was." That's the tricky part about this whole topic. I still knew what I believed in, where I came from, and what I thought was right and wrong. What I had stopped doing, however, is trusting in who I was and what I had to say. I began to mix what grades I received, as well as how people viewed me, with how I viewed myself. The biggest lesson I learned last year is that those are two very separate things.
I had come into college on an unnatural high, ready for everything that was about to be thrown at me. The possibility that I would have a rough time adjusting to college was apparent to me before I had left home, and in a way I had armed myself against it by coping with the hard times before they happened to me. Because of this, I remember feeling surprised by my lack of homesickness, and how easily I felt everything was coming to me.
Though over time, I started to realize the things I was doing everyday felt more like an autopilot version of me than who I knew I was before coming to college, and it began to really freak me out. I felt as though the basis of who I was had been torn out from under me from being away from home, and I struggled to maintain a strong sense of self among a community of people who had no idea who I was. Since I had no familiar grounds to root myself in as I did back home, I started to base myself off of everything that happened around me.
For those of us who have lived in our communities for a majority of our lives, the people around us have a general sense of who we are. We know what elementary, middle, and high schools we all went to, what sports we played, who our friends are, how long we've been friends with those people, and even knew each other's families. Our sense of knowing one another's personalities have been established since we were in grade school, since we literally grew up with each other.
Not having that to fall back on anymore, I began to search for things in my life that made me feel like I was at home again. Just talking to my family on the phone was comforting because I knew, at least with them, I was being my true self. It wasn't until later on that I came to a solution that helped me separate my new surroundings from my perception of who I was.
I found that remembering the small things about my childhood and past experiences really helped strengthen my sense of self, as well as the degree to which I believed in myself. I thought back to all of the things I have done in my life, significant or not. For me, it was eating sunflower seeds in my dad's truck with him when I was eight years old, and singing along to The Beatles. It was having a bowl hair cut and wearing Etnies shoes, and going to summer camp every day with my older brothers. It was all of the times between being at my mom's wedding with my stepdad, to living through the hardships my family has dealt with, to the early mornings going out for breakfast and drinking coffee with my mom and cousin who has turned into a sister, to the days my friends and I spent driving around when we first got our licenses- doing meaningless things that meant everything to us in the moment.
I realized that who I am is so much more than who I am within each moment, and that each passing moment acts as a building block to who I have yet to become. It is up to each one of us to know who we are, because no one else has experienced the journey of our lives as fully as we have- and it is our story to tell. I also realized that because of this, we cannot let ourselves become a sum of our present experiences, leaving everything we have done in the past behind just because we have come to a new environment.
My struggle with adjusting to college came to me in a way I never anticipated. Whether something similar to my experience has happened to you, or you have had a completely different experience all together- my main message that I want to get across is this: No one grade in a class, negative comment from one person, or bad experience can erase the person you are- so do not allow yourself to ever feel like less of a person because of it. Trust in yourself, know who you are, and know there is so much that you have yet to experience, and be excited about that. Those experiences are what will end up shaping your life when you look back on it years from now.
In the wise words of Mr. Feeny,
