Going into my freshman year of college, I had a mix of feelings: excitement, fear, relief, and nostalgia… just to name a few. My excitement stemmed from thoughts of college classes, making new friends, and the freedom of getting to live on my own for the first time. Little did I know that my year of living in the dorms would start out a little rocky.

Most kids going off to college have Pinterest boards titled “College,” with thousands of pictures of what their perfect dorm set-up would be. I know I started my “College” Pinterest board pretty much my first day of my senior year of high school, so I had been planning out my college dorm room for a very long time prior to move-in day. But nothing could prepare me for what I saw the first time I ever walked into my new living space.

My new dorm room floor was a yellow-white color with two huge black dirt streaks running from one side of the room to the other that never went away no matter how much scrubbing I did. There was one cobweb-filled window that looked out on a bunch of trees, making the room appear very dark. It was also the first time I ever had to use a community shower, and I know that the moldy tiling of the dorm shower will be burned into my memory forever. Looking back, I probably was expecting too much out of it all… I mean, come on, it’s a dorm room and it’s not supposed to be perfect -- it’s supposed to be livable. But on that day, all I remember was wanting to sit down on my new wooden desk chair with the loose leg and cry.

Because I was an athlete, I ended up getting to move into my dorm a week before anyone else. I was the only person living in my building that week, so I was pretty lonely to say the least. The only person I met that week was my dorm janitor, and the only thing he said to me was, “Oh… I didn’t know anyone was living here yet.” I was truly on my own for the first time, and it was lonelier than I could have imagined.

I definitely over-packed for my first year. You don’t really realize how much stuff you won’t have room for when you move into your dorm. I brought a lot of decorations that I didn’t have enough wall space for, and I brought about double the amount of clothes that would actually be able to fit into my tiny new wooden closet. I had to figure out what things I really felt like I needed and send the rest back home with my parents.

Fortunately, things did get better throughout my time spent in that dorm. Once I hung up some decorations on the wall and introduced my new room to the power of Clorox wipes, it kind of started to feel like home to me. My neighbors became my good friends, and I got to make some good memories living in the dorms.

The dorms really are an experience that I feel like everyone needs to have if they’re going off to college. I know that my time in the dorms made it so that I will never take for granted having a bigger space to call my own. It also taught me how to live on my own, how to clean up after myself, and how to make pretty much all of the gourmet microwavable foods you could ever imagine. It was definitely an experience, but one that I’m so glad I had.