As a midyear, you really don’t have much time to be a freshman in Brandeis. So your mid-year semester is like a college trail run. You’re excited to finally be here and begin your college journey even though it’s in the dead of winter and all the other freshman are already tired of college. Coming back in fall as a sophomore (which still blows my mind how fast time flew), is even more exciting as you finally get to see campus without snow and personally I still felt like a freshman in my first two months of being a sophomore. Not because I didn’t know my way around or because I was still ‘settling in’, simply because I didn’t have a whole year to be a freshman.
I came into sophomore year expecting everything to be exactly the same as mid-year semester not realizing that I hadn’t seen my friends in three months and ignoring the fact that we weren’t going to be living in the village together. When things obviously weren’t the same for various reasons it took me a long time to process that things are not going to go back to the way they were and that this was the new normal. Now, don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all bad, it was just different. Afterall all no one can be a freshman forever.
My friend groups were different. Even though I still love all my mid-year friends and we are always going to be a family and share a special connection, we branched out. It made me realize that hanging out was made easier in the village and now that we don’t live together anymore, it’s harder to see one another. We have different schedules and we live all over campus and don’t see each other as much but I soon realized they’re always going to be there when I need them.
We all got more serious about work, our majors and what we wanted to do in the future. As we often seem to forget, there is life after college and the real world awaits us! As a freshman you’re so excited to finally be in college you don’t think about the future. However, as a sophomore, the excitement wears down and you start getting serious about classes, your grades, thinking about internships etc. You stop ‘settling in’ anymore and start changing your priorities. I personally feel so much different and better about the way I handled this semester. My grades are better, my health is better and overall I fell so much more in control. It’s okay to slip a little in freshman year focusing on friends and getting acclimated to a new environment. But sophomore year is time to get serious!
Being a Midyear will always be special. We share a special bond and even though it took me some time, I finally came to terms with change and embraced what college is actually like. I embraced the change, I welcomed new friends and joined so many more clubs! Your midyear semester will always be special but you will make new friends and new memories and being open to change is the fastest way to do that. Now that first semester of sophomore year is finally nearing to an end I can say that I have learned a lot and finally don’t feel like a freshman!