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I Regret It And I’m Not Ready

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Hampton U chapter.

While most college seniors are excited to be starting their final semester of their undergraduate career in a few months, I on the other hand am full of regret and A LOT of fear.

My college experience was not as outstanding and normal as I hoped for it to be. I got the chance to attend my dream school, but it was more like a sad sonnet. My freshman and sophomore year were full of lots of tears, depression, and most of my confidence being stripped away. 

When I transferred things got a little better, but my lack of confidence and fear of rejection kept me chained to the safety of my room, meaning I missed out on a lot. 

I was counting on my senior year to really take Hampton’s campus by storm (not my best idea) and to create more memories, but this seemingly never ending pandemic laughed in my face and said “sis, you thought.” 

With my entire senior year being experienced from my room, I cannot help but think about all the things I missed out on from fear. As well as me assuming that I would have time to do it all later. 

Time to be social, attend annual on-campus events, get out of my comfort zone, and just be a carefree college student, all miniscule things that I took for granted.  My college journey is  pretty much over, and I feel like it dragged me by my edges more than anything else. 

Yes, I know that opportunities to have fun and be carefree do not only exist in college, but in a few months I will be thrown into the real world and forced to be an adult, and frankly I am shaking in my boots. 

In no shape or form do I feel prepared to start fully being an adult. I am broke as a joke, still a bit childish, and I am just NOT READY. 

I know that I enjoy writing but I just figured that out and kind of got the hang of it like a year ago, so my confidence in my writing skills is lacking. I see underclassmen writing for magazines and just spewing out black girl magic effortlessly and I realize that at this big age I have not had an internship related to my new major.

To add on to not securing an internship yet, like many other journalism students across the world the pandemic cut my editing and producing classes short so now I do not have those skills either. 

Lastly, I am still not sure what exactly I want to do. Yeah, I want to write, but write what exactly? I have no idea. 

At this point I know you probably thought to yourself “yeah girl, you aren’t ready,” and you are right. Despite our lack of confidence in my readiness, somehow I made it this far so I guess I am a little more prepared than I thought.

I am going to continue to smile and wave and just pray the universe knows what it is talking about. To all my regretful, unprepared college seniors out there we are going to be just fine (I hope). Just keep swimming and pushing through the fire *Chaka Khan voice*.

Jamaija Rhoades

Hampton U '21

Jamaija Rhoades is a transfer student pursuing the journalism major. She aspires to be a film journalist. Jamaija would also like to open up her own movie theater that holds enrichment programs for individuals of African descent. She enjoys watching movies and writing about the themes that inspire her within these movies.
I have the privilege to serve as Campus Correspondent for the Her Campus Hampton U Chapter a second year! I am a graduating Senior, Strategic Communications major, Marketing minor currently studying at the illustrious Hampton University. I am from Richmond, VA (shoutout to the 804!). In addition to classes, I run my own creative agency, Tiana Nichelle Marketing where I specialize in social media management, content creation, public relations, and branding. My love for the PR and Communications industry is the reason my ultimate goal is to become a celebrity publicist in the upcoming years! Her Campus Hampton U is an organization that is near and dear to me and I am so happy to be a leader of this ELITE chapter!