When I was a little girl, it baffled me that every story needed some type of conflict. I refused to accept it as fact and would spend hours attempting to write tales in which no problems ever arose. It took me quite a while, but I eventually acknowledged that in reality, people need complications in their lives - to learn, to persevere, to grow. The past three months of my own life serve as the quintessence of this . . . .

I was so excited to come to college. My summer had been absolutely incredible - I grew immensely within those couple of months and I was the happiest I had been in a long, long time. I finally felt confident in myself and had fallen deeply in love with my life. Constantly looking forward to my next chapter, I set very high expectations. I continuously told myself how I was going to succeed in every possible way - no matter what - and ended up convincing myself that these next four years would be the greatest of my life (I still strongly believe that they will be, don’t worry). But I refused to anticipate experiencing any detrimental obstacles - didn’t even let the thought cross my mind, actually. Now that I was finally in such a great place, I ignorantly disabled myself from logically looking forward and developing a plan ahead of time for how to handle inevitable upcoming problems. I had already lived away from home without my family for two months, twice. I had already taken challenging courses in high school. I had already needed to balance the social and academic aspects of my life. I had already lived with up to nine strangers in tight quarters several times. I felt truly prepared for anything life could throw my way. Needless to say, I was definitely not.

I cried every single day my first term of college. I felt alone and stupid. No one here really knew me and I was too ashamed to reach out to my family and friends to admit that I was having a tough time transitioning to school. Eventually, I slowly began to come clean about my true feelings to those close to me. My best friend, who lives in Scotland, commented that “there’s so much pressure in America for you to absolutely love your school.” This really hit me as so surprisingly accurate. Coming to school, sure, I had set many expectations for myself, but I believe that those “goals”, if you will, were strongly influenced by the pressure I felt from society to love my school and excel here. Starting to really hate my experience in college, I tried silently blaming everything and everyone else around me before even looking into myself. Recognizing this toxic habit I had formed, I eventually realized something very important:

We blame society, but we are society.

I grappled with what to do with this new revelation. So this is why I’m sharing my story thus far, to hopefully contribute to breaking down the stigma I see around people struggling with their own obstacles, especially with transitioning to college. You are not alone.

Your very first semester of college is tough and THAT IS OKAY. It’s expected, actually! Everyone has to work through adjusting to the new-found freedom, while still trying to get enough sleep - nobody has it all together. No matter how on top of things someone seems, I guarantee you that they have their own set of problems they’re dealing with. The tough part of all this is that most people don’t feel comfortable admitting that they’re having difficulties (at least I know I did). Everyone wants people to think that they love their new school so much, that they’re not just surviving, but thriving as well.

But guess what? Working through challenging obstacles is exactly what enables people to thrive! You need conflict in your life, trust me. Having some troubles along the way is crucial, in college especially, because it serves as the epitome of a place for growth. That is exactly why we come to school - to improve ourselves.

I encourage you to do everything in your ability to recognize that every obstacle in your path is truly just another opportunity to learn. Have patience and remember that everything will get better. Motivate yourself to use every challenge to continue developing your character.