Oh, sophomore year. The return to stress and -- at Allegheny, the time to declare your major and minor. I entered Allegheny College as an undecided major although a part of me knew for a very long time what I wanted to do. The summer after my freshman, I applied to one job, but did not get it. It sort of depressed me to know that I wasn’t capable of landing a job. I then decided to stay at home and spend it with my family, and it turned out to be a great summer.

As I started my sophomore year in college, I decided for a communication arts major and an economics minor. I always found the media fascinating and, well, I knew that learning accounting could help me earn a living once I am out of college. When I began my second semester, I disliked the classes from day one. Learning about Plato, the Sophists and public speaking? An English class where we talk about death the entire semester? Well, it could be worse, right? Regardless, I put myself through the classes because I knew that sometimes, we have to do things we don’t like to get to the fun parts.

Now that I am towards the end of my second semester, I am looking back and realizing just how much I have learned about myself.

I love organization.

During my first year, like others, I tried to keep a planner but was probably 70 percent successful in keeping track of stuff. Now, I’ve gotten a good grip as to how I work best. I use daily planning sheets to schedule classes, events, meetings, and even free time. I’ll admit it, I like to color code and highlight almost everything. The reality is, I learned that I like to keep things organized so that my life can be easier, stress-free and can accommodate things I want to do.

I like to be private.

I like to be active on the social media. Well, sort of. I like scrolling down through Facebook, Pinterest and Yahoo every day. However, I learned that I prefer to be somewhat of a private person. I don’t like to use Snapchat every day because I prefer to live in the moment (as cliche as that sounds). I don’t update my Facebook profile so much because I think people who know me are informed about what’s going on in my life. I don’t have an Instagram, although I sometimes search through my favorite celebrities, but then, who doesn’t do that? I learned that I like it to keep it that way so that I can avoid spending so much time scrolling through a large amount of time in the social media during the week.

I like to be alone, sometimes.

Aside from being private, I learned that sometimes, I just want to be alone. Of course, I am grateful to have such amazing friends and family that I know will always be there for me. There are moments though, that I like to be alone and contemplate life. I find that I have a lot of alone time but that just helps me stay sane and think about things like school, and well, life in general. That doesn't mean I don't like to socialize. It’s not that I don’t like my life or that I don’t like my friends, it’s just who I like to be. I hope that my friends and family can understand and love me regardless of it.

I like to write.

I admit I’ve known this for a long time. I have done some creative writing ever since I was 12, but disliked the idea of having to write essays for classes. However, this semester I realized that this hobby of mine could be something I can do in the future. I consider myself to be a free writer, someone who wants to write freely on anything that I want to talk about. That’s why I decided to try to write for The Odyssey. Somehow, I’ve enjoyed it so much that I potentially have a second minor in journalism.

I can be a leader.

Me, a leader? For most of my life, from high school until now, I’ve always considered myself to be a follower. I was that student in high school who was part of a club but never really held higher positions. I’ve always thought that was okay because there are no leaders without followers. This year, however, I’ve learned that I can be a leader. I joined Unión Latinx, became a secretary and was somehow voted to be co-president next year. I took part in events and saw the potential that I have to be a leader. I had not realized just how much I have grown and without the support of my friends, it would not have been possible.

Even though this is just my second year in college, I have learned so many things about myself. As much as I disliked the classes, something great came out of them. Yeah, I still have anxiety going up in front of a class but not everyone likes public speaking and that’s okay. That public speaking class, though, enabled me to know the professor better and ask her to be my adviser next year. That English class taught me that I don’t like to write essays with prompts but that I like to free write. This pushed me to potentially take on a second minor in journalism. Hopefully, I can learn so much more about myself in the remaining time I have at Allegheny.