I have given a little too much advice this week.

Though I seem to believe that I do not have the plans for my life together, I have given a large amount of advice to freshmen students this week. Not only am I am an advisor for a small group of girls in a freshmen SGA organization, but I am also a cadre leader for freshmen girls in my honors program. The first real meeting for both mentor groups were this past week, and I am suddenly struck by my lack of expertise. Although I have one year of college under my belt, I still feel like I am at the bottom of the totem pole.

I have talked to the freshmen girls about sorority recruitment, tough professors, and leaving home. While I am acting as this all-knowing advisor, I still do not have a great reason for being independent, I like having challenging professors, and I go to school in my hometown. Though I want to help freshmen have the best first year they can, it is difficult to advise from the perspective of someone who is still figuring things out.

While I still do not know what I want to do with my major and still work on balancing my activities, I also had a pleasant first year. I made friends, and even though I had to be patient for the best of the friendships to come, I enjoyed the process of meeting new people and skimming the surface of college for a while. However, this description makes my first year of college so abstract. I would be worried if it was seamlessly perfect, but I also loved the newness of my freshmen experiences. How I advise freshmen with more complicated struggles than my own is what I am dealing with this week.

In my cadre, I have found myself resorting to basic college advise during our first meeting. I talked about how to find peace by not worrying about grades too much and trying relaxing activities like coloring. Obviously it had my own twist on how students can find peace during the stress of Samford, but I hate just giving these girls the same advise they are hearing everywhere from every caring upperclassmen on Samford’s campus. However, I do not know how the underwhelming story about my freshmen year adds any perspective to how they feel. These freshmen have backgrounds and potentials that I cannot imagine let alone begin to learn about by seeing them once a week.

I met my SGA advising group this weekend, and I began to figure out that I could still advise others without knowing everything. I am starting to see that no one really knows everything. I saw the girls in this group work together in the discussion over planning a campus-wide event, and I saw how well people work when they are simply connecting with one another. Simply listening and responding led to great leadership between strangers. When I began my cadre, I encouraged the girls to talk as much as possible rather than listening to me ramble. I am noticing that through the awkward beginnings and the confusing sense of authority that I am dealing with, simply making connections is a way to start.

So I do not have everything together, and hopefully, that will lead to truer advice than any perfect solution I could imagine.