The first day of college, for many, marks the start of a new beginning. It is overflowing with the excitement of living without rules and meeting new people. For the nine months of freshman year, you live on your own in what seems like an endless paradise of friends and fun. Yes, academics get more difficult, you lack familiar faces and the heartbreaks are real. But, in the grand scheme of things, the first year is a blur of worry-free excitement.
Freshman year is a dreamlike period of adjustment and "finding yourself"—it’s a transitional period. Yet, this period ends with the spring semester and you move out of the dorms and back home with your parents. You have changed and grown, but all along, you knew you would have to leave your new home on campus and return to your "parents' house." While you may claim you are a responsible and independent adult, it is not until you return the following year that you realize how naïve you really were.
Typically, freshmen live in dorms where their bathrooms are cleaned for them, their rent and expenses are included in tuition and their meals are prepared at the dining hall. If, for your next year, you choose to move into an apartment or house, you must pay rent, electricity, gas, water, Internet and various other expenses each month—a disheartening realization when you see your bank account drain. You cook every single meal, wash dishes and clean—your room, your bathroom, living room and the kitchen. It’s a requirement to even maintain a simple standard of living. You realize college is not just another obstacle in the way of you and your adult life. The transitional period is over. This is adult life. Welcome.
The everyday adult independence you insisted you had as a freshman imposes itself full-force on your life. It is not just the responsibilities of cleaning your home and paying your bills, but your growth as a social being. You start to consider the future and encounter difficulties in life you never had to worry about: "She doesn’t want to have kids. He worries more about his weekend plans than his GPA. This job won’t give me any transferable work experience, but the ones that
Through it all though, you survive. You may be crawling or limping or skipping, but you are still moving. You reflect back on your innocent freshman year and smile, because yes, it was just the beginning. Now, you are past the introductions and life has developed. The glorified façade of college fades away into a beautiful mess of living. College is not your life; instead, it becomes another part of your life as an "adult," responsible for feeding, clothing and providing for yourself.