College will be fun, they said. What you learn in the classroom will prepare you for the real world, they said. Well, let me tell you what I say. What “they” say is a complete and utter lie. There is no manual that prepares you for the highs and lows you experience in college. There is nothing you can learn in a textbook that prepares you for the real world. At least not completely. Yes, it’s true we can prepare ourselves for our careers by taking courses in our field, but real life lessons are learned outside of the classroom.
So what am I getting at exactly? Why am I sitting here telling you all of this? Well, here’s why. When I first started college I didn’t really have people telling me what to expect. Of course I had family who had gone to college before me, but for some reason the real advice that should have been shared was kept hush-hush. The purpose is to share some experience with you all so you can know what to truly expect when you are in college. I can tell you now that things will not always be parties, booze, Greek life, and boys. If that’s what you are expecting coming in, then you of all people definitely need to take my advice. In college, you go through stages, with a million highs and lows in between.
It would only make sense for your freshman year to begin with stage one. Everything in stage one is new and exciting. Finally going off to college, living on your own, being away from your parents, going Greek (if you so choose) and starting over. Unless you’re going to college with all of your friends from high school, no one knows who you were before and no one cares. Your first year will either be the best or worst year of your life. Sigh.
Yes, there’s a chance that you may go off to school and be absolutely miserable, but we’ll get to that later. You will have a lot of friends in this stage and you will probably think that these people will be in your life forever. They won't. I can promise you they won’t. Many college students worldwide can attest to that. Stage one pretty much revolves around friends and finding good ones. You will bounce around in many different groups, so don’t feel that you have to stay in one place.
Going off to school, you may think that being away from home is the coolest thing in the world, but I can promise that you will be homesick at some point in this experience. Going from having your support system right at your fingertips to only speaking with them a few times a week is a hard adjustment. You may not see it right away, but it’s important to enjoy the time you have at home with your family. There’s a chance that you’ll go to school and love it, but there’s also a chance that you’ll absolutely hate it.
By the end of stage one, you’ll know whether or not you want to stick it out or transfer to a new school. If you do end up transferring, don’t think it’s the end of the world, because it’s not. People try things all the time and don’t end up liking them. Think of college in the same way.
Next comes stage two, which is sophomore year. By this point, you have somewhat discovered who your real friends are and which ones you need to show the door. You know your way around campus at this point and you may even be more comfortable participating in class. But more importantly, this is the stage in which you start making discoveries about yourself. Learning who you are is an ongoing journey throughout life that will never end but I feel that in stage two you really start asking yourself those tough questions. Who am I? Why am I here? What am I doing? Where am I going?
It’s likely that in your freshman year you won’t care about these things because you have four years to figure that stuff out. But here you are, in your sophomore year, contemplating what the hell you’re supposed to be doing in life. In this stage, you’re definitely going to start feeling pressure. You don’t have to stress as hard as you will in stage three but you definitely are going to have to start making some tough choices. College is different than it was when our parents went. You can’t just be relaxed and expect things to come to you. You’ve got to go our there and earn them.
Then comes phase three during your junior year. I personally like to call this the stage of realization. For a while, you were on the path of discovery, and here is when life hits you like a ton of bricks. This is when you have your “oh sh*t” moments. You realize that you are halfway done with college. You realize that you actually have to declare a major this year. You realize that you have to intern your a** off so you can look employable. You realize that you have to start thinking about post-graduate life. That’s where the stress comes in.
It’s likely that you will experience a lot of lows during this stage simply because there will be a lot weighing on your brain. This is where you turn to the friends that you’ve made to be your support system as well as making a call home to cry to your mother (I do this at least twice a week). I was in this stage, so trust me when I say that I am trying my hardest to not be biased. Junior year is undoubtedly the hardest year that you will endure both mentally and emotionally.
Finally comes the fourth and final stage. The stage of uncertainty. You’ve made it all the way to senior year and you have no clue what to expect. You’ve put in all of your hard work and now is the time to see if that work will pay off. You will probably stress in this stage too, but above all, you will start to live. At this point, there’s nothing more you can do but ride the wave until the tide comes rolling in. You may not know what the future holds but none of that will matter because you will finally be able to say that you’ve made it to the finish line. I, for one, am so hyped to be in this final stage. It's been a long journey, but nothing feels better than knowing I only have one more year of school.
If you haven’t gotten anything from what I’ve said, just know that if you’re out there not knowing what you want out of life, you’re not alone. The media makes it seem as though college students are supposed to have all of these things mapped out by the time they graduate and that’s just false. Guess what? It’s okay if you’re 25 and realize what you went to school for is no longer what you want to do. Who says that things have to be done in a certain way? There’s so much pressure put on college-age youth and it’s important to know that we’re still young and we don’t have to have everything figured out. And do you want to know a secret? What they don’t tell you is that you’re going to experience all of this and you’re going to get through it. To all of my fellow seniors, let's make the best of stage four and let the rest of life take care of itself.
