When I first came into college in the fall of 2022, I was hopeful — hopeful that my life would dramatically change in ways I’ve been dreaming of since the many years of high school. However, by the end of my first semester of freshman year, I somehow felt worse. I felt stuck and out of control.Â
The media continually pushes the notion that college is the best time of your life, that your life after high school magically changes overnight. But, as I’ve come to find out in the past three years, this is simply not true. Change happens when you say it happens.Â
During my first semester at college, I felt more alone than I ever had before, and if I told that to my high school self, she would’ve been appalled. You always think that you know how to handle the low points, because at the time, it’s the lowest you’ve ever gone. But then life hands you a basket of lemons, and instead of lemonade, all you have is a bunch of half squeezed lemons with the juice stinging in the cuts of your hand.Â
I spent all my free time wallowing in self pity, wondering if now was the time, if today was the day, when everything would finally change for the better. Yet as each day passed, nothing changed, and I was still curled up in my bed alone, doom scrolling through TikTok for hours on end. Every day felt like the last. The weeks started blurring together, and before I knew it, my first semester of college was over and I had wasted it. The same thing happened during the second semester of my freshman year, and it seeped further into part of my first semester as a sophomore.Â
Through a series of events in my life that I like to call “character development moments,” a switch flipped somewhere in my head. All of a sudden, I had matured more in a few months than I did in my entirety of my high school career. Looking back, I think part of it has to do with living independently; in a new environment, in a new state. I had always been stringently independent, but college is a learning curve for even the most self-proclaimed independency.Â
Once I changed the way I started thinking about my life, taking an active role rather than a passive one, I slowly watched as things became better. I formed deeper relationships with my friends, who I now live with and I started getting closer to my family. I got into an amazing, healthy relationship and I got clarity of what I wanted my career to look like. I get to be part of the senior executive team at HCCU and I get to keep growing, personally and professionally, every single day.Â
I realized that if I wanted my life to change, I had to be the one who changes it. There’s no magical power that washes over you while you’re asleep, there’s only you. I believe that this goes for anything in life that you wish was better — relationships with friends, significant others, even family or your mental health and outlook on life. Every step, no matter how small, counts if you want it to count. Change isn’t always a bad thing.