Wrapping up the year with a couple glasses of champagne and good friends had me reflecting, as usual, on the year prior. I found that I had learned more in the past year than I had ever realized. I found out, as cheesy as it is, what it’s like to fall in love. LET ME STOP YOU RIGHT NOW, before you think you are going to read an article about how a doe-eyed college girl fell in love with a boy — I'll tell you that isn’t what this is about. This is about all the other things you fall in love with during the BEST four years of your life (though I’ve only been through one and a half).
You fall in love with your passions.
When I came to school, I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and I wasn’t going consider anything else. As I watched my friends at school change their major, and change it again, I realized how much I actually did love the hobby that I was going to turn into a career. You’ll change your major, you’ll sit in on countless advising appointments, you’ll watch too many episodes of Grey's Anatomy and decide you want to be a surgeon then immediately regret your decision after signing up for Chemistry 1320, and it’s okay. The time to figure out what you are going to enjoy doing is now. But college helped me reassure that passion, and I fell in love with what I wanted to do.
Finding love within your friends.
In high school, you grow up with the same people and create this tight group of friends. For me at least, I never left my comfort zone; I had my friends and I couldn’t imagine meeting anyone else that I would be as close with. When I got to college, however, that completely changed. People change, friends grow apart, some get closer, but reaching out to other people isn’t a bad thing. I opened up and found a group of friends I can’t imagine my life without, and they are among the most eclectic group of people I’ve ever met. Sorority sisters, friends from classes, or the girl you met in a fraternity bathroom that turns into your best friend, all of which you don’t know how you ever lived without them. I fell in love with the kind of friends college gave me and the great memories that came with them.
Falling in love with opportunity and experiences.As lame as it may sound, college is a time for experiences and making mistakes as well as taking risks and finding those golden opportunities. When I got to college, I was completely mesmerized by all the amazing opportunities that were right in front of me (as nerdy as that sounds). Academically, yes, there are clubs, internships, leadership positions, or interviews. But putting the academic part aside, there are complete all-nighters, football games, basketball games, tailgating, the nights you’ll always remember and some in between that are still a little hazy. There’s a reason people says college is the best four years of your life, and it’s because of everything it has to offer. I fell in love with the great things I got to experience and memories that are unforgettable.
College is all about finding yourself and taking that next step, and sometimes we focus too much on the negative or too much on the little things that are in the back of our minds. Putting relationships aside, you can fall in love with many things. For me, it wasn’t a boy; it was my major, my friends, the first night of college and all those in between up until now. I fell in love with college, and let’s face it, it is totally way less complicated than a boy.
