Going into my sophomore year, I had no idea what I was expecting. I was coming off the high of a wonderful freshman year, and I was, of course, looking forward to it. Back to school with some of my best friends, some interesting new classes, and a year of community living, where I could be surrounded by people I knew and liked at all hours of the day.

But I also had my worries about the year ahead. What was going to change for the better? Would anything change for the worse? Which friends would I keep and which might I lose? Where would my stress levels be? Would I be able to handle my class load? Would student government be a good choice? I had so many questions going into the year, and I was worried about what the answers could turn out to be.

And somehow I have made it to the end of the first semester of sophomore year. It felt like it went by in the blink of an eye, while at the same time each week dragged on for an eternity. Classes have been harder than they were before, and my stress levels about class and life and everything have been through the roof. But it has also been the best semester yet, for a long list of unexpected reasons.

My worries about friendships turned out to be largely unfounded. I could keep all the wonderful friends I’d made and even develop those friendships further. Some of them may live off-campus, or we all have conflicting busy schedules so we don’t see each other as often. But somehow, despite these barriers, I have become closer to them than I ever thought possible. And on top of deepening last year’s friendships, I have made some unexpected new friends as well. New people in my dorm, my leadership team, people in student government, new friends that I didn’t see myself making this year. And some of these new friends are people that I know I want to be friends with for many years to come, which is just insane to think about.

Going into freshman year I expected these kinds of fast friendships, because I needed them if I wanted to get through the year, and so did everybody else. But the last thing I expected was to have the same thing happen my sophomore year. And it's been ridiculously cool. There are so many great people out there to meet and befriend.

This semester has been unexpectedly challenging academically. It's been unexpectedly stressful. I've been way busier than I thought I would be, and I chose to lay face down on the floor out of stress more times than I can count. I've cried and I've screamed about life and homework and everything else.

But in spite of all these things, I've laughed more than I thought was physically possible. I've found time to have so much fun doing all sorts of different things. I've built beautiful friendships and smiled so much with old and new friends alike.

Basically, in spite of all the horrible stress I've been under, it's been the best semester yet because of the people I've experienced it with.