Starting my sophomore year at college, I get the pleasure of seeing all the new freshman attempting to make their way through a completely new environment. Even though it’s my second year I still enjoy reading all the advice that upperclassmen like to pass on to the younger kids (honestly you can never receive too much advice).
However, I feel as though the older classmates seem to skip around the fact that freshman year is not all sunshine and rainbows, especially in the beginning. Coming home for summer and talking with my old high school friends, I learned that a bunch of them had harsh beginnings to the four best years of their lives too.
For a lot of us we don’t find our real friends right away, in fact we don’t find them for months and after a lot of rough events happened.
Personally, I went through so many friend groups before I found the ones that would be my friends for life. Although I finally found them, I went through friends that ditched me, didn’t include me in their plans, and treated me like sh*t. I ate lunch by myself a lot and would sometimes skip dinner because I was scared to eat alone.
There were plenty of nights where I would sit in my room alone (when I would see my so-called "friends" go out without even inviting me). I would even leave the door open. They say that’s the best way to make friends, which isn’t necessarily true. Sure I met some people that way but not my best friends.
Most freshman expect their roommates to be their best friends, sure we’ve all heard the horror stories of the bad roommate, but we all think "no, that’s not mine. She/he’s super cool!" I was the same way.
And eventually, my roommate became one of my best friends. But in the beginning she left every weekend, didn’t participate in orientation, and we had no classes together. I didn’t think it was going to work out. I learned I had to make friends a different way. And of course, I ended up loving my roomie but we just weren’t attached at the hips.
My one friend also had a really rough time for the whole first semester. At first it seemed to be going all good: she had a good group of friends going, she had a thing with a boy she really liked and everything was going good.
Until she realized the boy was being a huge jerk and not treating her right. Her so called “friends” ended up calling her a bitch and ditching her – including her own roommate. She was left all by herself and she was having personal problems that made opening up and explaining things to her “friends” difficult. Eventually, she was able to figure things out, meet new people, she joined a sorority that she loved and they loved her and everything turned out alright for her.
Even though the beginning can be difficult, in the end, it's totally worth every second of it. If you hang in there, you'll eventually find your fit and be dying to go back after a break. As cliche as it may seems college really is the best years of your life so give it a chance.
