All throughout high school, I couldn’t wait for college. Everyone said it was going to be the best four years of my life. I’d make tons of lifelong friends, and get to study something other than Math, Science, English and History every year for four years. Freedom and fun, what could be better?
College was going to be great.
But then I got here and it just…wasn’t.
High-school me was expecting some sort of huge transformation; like in Cinderella when all the animals and pumpkins and stuff got turned into a fancy carriage and horses. Unfortunately, real life doesn’t work like that.
I was still the same person I was in high school, no matter how much I didn’t want to be.
No one told me how lonely college was going to be. At a school of over 40,000 it’s common to walk to class and not see one familiar face. This was way different from high school, where my graduating class had less than 50 people and everyone knew each other.
And real friends are hard to find. It took me a while to figure that out. In college, you meet tons of people everywhere. In class, in the dorms, clubs, and just around campus. There’s no shortage of people to introduce yourself to and then forget as soon as you get home. But real friends – people who will stay up late singing Taylor Swift songs with you or a roommate that says “neat” too often – those are rare.
Choosing my own major was great, until I realized I didn’t want that one any more.
College was nothing like I’d expected. I was stressed all the time, I slept too often and lived on coffee instead of real meals. I stopped doing homework completely for a while.
At first, I thought something was wrong with me. Why wasn’t I having the time of my life like everyone else? I didn’t want to go to parties and meet new “friends” I’d never hear from again. I didn’t want to stay awake all night studying. I didn’t want to study at all.
All I wanted was somewhere to belong, but apparently college wasn’t that place.
But everything changed after freshman year when I found a job over the summer. I never thought I could be excited about waking up in the morning, but I was for those eight weeks. It was really weird, but in a good way.
Then summer ended, and school started again. I never found any motivation or interest in my major, but I’ve only got a year left. It doesn’t really matter at this point. I’m just trying to pass my classes and spend time with my friends.
I guess the lesson here (not that I’m really qualified to give one) is to make the most out of your time here because life is short and all that. It may be awful, but try to at least make a few good memories. Don’t spend all your time studying, but definitely do that sometimes.
So, to all of you out there struggling with the same thing, college may not be the best four years of your life either. But that’s okay.