They say that time flies when you're having fun, and they weren't wrong. Looking back at the past (almost four) years now, it's hard to believe that my college career has almost come to its end. It still feels like yesterday when I overpacked my entire bedroom and tried to cram it into my freshman dorm on move-in day.
I think back to the things that plagued my mind during that day. How I was supposed to live in a supplemental dorm with not one but, four additional roommates?! How was I supposed to wake up at the crack of dawn every morning to make my daily 8 A.M. lectures when I couldn't decipher one place from the other on the school map? (And you couldn't even speak to me about CATA buses because trying to catch those was another league of trouble on its own.)
What seemed like a myriad of unsolvable issues started to slowly disappear after only a couple of weeks as I began to fall into the groove of things. When the possibility came to switch out of my supplemental room into a standard dorm, I declined the offer, choosing to stay with the girls who had become some of my closest friends. I found that 8 A.M.s weren't so threatening once I got used to them. They actually weren't all that different than waking up so early in high school. The only difference was I didn't have to stay in the same building for another few hours after!
The grandiose campus that stretched on for miles was suddenly smaller as I found familiar faces from the cafeteria in my Tuesday and Thursday classes. And those CATA buses? Absolute life-savers, especially when you have the app downloaded on your phone to show when they're coming to your stop.
Such big issues for my little freshman self seem so small now. It's laughable to think that I used to lose sleep over them. I try to apply the same reasoning now when it comes to approaching the future. As an incoming senior, I've already put so my pressure on myself before the school year has even begun.
I ask myself how I'm supposed to leave the place that I've come to know and love for the past four years. I know close to nothing about this so-called "real world" or how to function in it. Files of resumes and unfinished cover letters that I haven't sent out sit in my documents folder because I'm afraid that they aren't good enough for potential employers. I'm not ready to move on yet and transform myself from a college student into a potential candidate for a full-time job. The thought scares me the way that flagging down CATA buses going 60-miles an hour down the campus streets used to. But at the end of the day, I made it onto that bus. I figured out where to go for my classes and how to live with a group of strangers that gave me some of my the best memories of my life. For these reasons I know I'll make it even farther once this chapter of my life comes to an end.
To anyone else that's anxious about the last year of college, remember that we made it through freshman year. If we can catch a CATA bus, we can survive whatever life throws at us next.
