Going through senior year of high school, you hear a lot about what college is going to be like. Maybe you heard, "It will be the best four years of your life!" Or "The 8 a.m. classes will suck," or, "You will be more broke than you've ever been." You might have heard, "You'll meet the best friends you'll ever have!" All of these things are true to an extent, but none of them really sum up what your freshman year of college is actually like.

Freshman year of college is hard. It's really hard. When you first move out of your house and into your dorm, it's all okay. For the first week or two, college just kind of feels like summer camp; like you'll be going home soon, and everything will be exactly the way it was. But, soon enough, it starts to hit you what's really happening: you're not living at home anymore. You're entering adulthood. And that's terrifying. For the first few weeks, you feel alone, you miss your pets, you want to hug your mom, and you just want to see your best friends. But you can't. That is, in my opinion, the greatest challenge of your freshman year of college.

When you arrive, all that you know is gone. You feel like a little kid who has lost their parent in the grocery store; everything is big, scary, and takes more responsibility than you have. You don't know what to do. But you can't give up, so what do you do?

You keep going. There might be some teary phone calls home or other hard times, but you keep going. You really have no choice, at least until the end of the semester.

Then, somewhere along the line, things start to change. You have less lonely, nostalgic days, you have less trouble finishing your homework, and you get used to the ups and downs of living with a roommate. You might start spending less time with people that you knew in high school, and more time with people at college. You realize that it is less painful returning after weekends at home, or you could find yourself wanting to go back. There might even be days where you find yourself enjoying the freedom of walking around the city alone, where you feel more yourself with your college friends, or you encounter new ideas that you find interesting. You begin to realize that the world is more than just your hometown, that there are people living, making friends, exercising, going to coffee shops, working and thriving in other places.

Beginning college is a painful experience, but it is more worth it than words can describe.

While you are in the awkward stages of your life, in middle school and early high school, you're still growing. You experience growing pains in your arms and legs. It hurts, but in the end, in your adult body, you have the ability to be much stronger, and move much faster. That's what your freshman year of college is: it's growing pains. You are growing from the high schooler that you were into the adult that you will be. It is not easier, but in the end, as an adult, you will be stronger, more responsible, and more independent.

Although I am still in the midst of my second semester of my freshman year, looking back I can see all the ways that I, along with my fellow high school and college classmates, have grown. We are not the same people that moved out into our dorms almost 9 months ago. It has been somewhat painful growing out of the person I was and into the person I am becoming, but I am forever grateful for the things I have learned, the people I have met, and for the things that I've had to do.

Freshman year can be a scary thing, but in the end it is nothing to be afraid of. It is not just a change, it is a growth spurt. Ultimately, growth always ends in a new, stronger you.