My first year at college wasn’t the Legally Blonde experience I had hoped for. Or maybe it was: an overwhelming amount of work that was both rewarding and staggering, mean girls who didn’t get the high school cutoff memo, unnecessary parties, and the unaccustomed nature of being your own parent. Given that it’s the end of the year, I wanted to review what I learned from this year from my perspective.
LEARNING A NEW LANGUAGE IS REALLY HARD…AND SOMETIMES WEIRD
My College of Arts and Sciences degree has a foreign language fluency requirement, and I chose… French. I wanted to try something new. It was definitely a challenging spring semester where I had to study for a new chapter exam every other week while also understanding the unfamiliar French equivalents of my everyday English vocabulary. This course was my most strenuous this year, but unequivocally the most gratifying as learning a new language is as close to starting a new life without leaving your domicile.
GOING TO THE SLC > GOING OUT
The freedom of going to college with no supervising adults around introduces concepts I wasn’t exposed to before, like going to clubs. I realized early in the fall semester that that scene, the pressure, and the aftermath that follows were not for me, and I could fill my time with more productive events and on-campus places like the Student Life Cinema at the ASLC. It has become my second home this semester, and if there is any reason to say I’m proud to be a Seminole, it’s because of this building. My favorite showing had to be the Mamma Mia double feature!
LOSING FRIENDS IS sometimes better
Being a freshman in college meant being open-minded to new things and people, and that was a practice I adopted going into a new environment where I didn’t know many people. That being said, I tried my best to keep the friends I had at the beginning but ultimately severed those friendships due to differing priorities, leaving me with fewer friends than I had before but a clearer view of the type of friends I was meant to have.
SEMINOLE CAFE IS WAY BETTER THAN SUWANNEE
It took me a whole month to work up the courage to make the seventeen-minute walk from Deviney to Seminole, but I’m so glad I did because it only feels like ten minutes. I was surprised at the difference in quality Seminole usually exhibits compared to Suwannee. There are usually more gourmet dishes, a pasta station, and a grill area where they do a variety of specials for lunch and dinner. Not only is the food good, but the atmosphere is calmer, and they go big and beyond for special occasions, like this live band for Mardi Gras.
IT’S OKAY TO TAKE A BREAK
There were many times during these past two semesters when the workload and the presence of inhabiting someone unfamiliar enveloped me. There were times I felt alone and misunderstood. The only way I could come out of that was by realizing that these feelings were normal, and as much as I discovered many new and wonderful things at FSU this past year, there were a lot of times that weren’t as euphoric, and it’s important to recognize those times as I grow past them.
All in all, I learned so much from my freshman year at FSU. There was love, loss, friendship, heartache, and despair but overall growth, and I’m so thankful for all the experiences I had this year and the memories and friends Her Campus has given me.
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