Every year in college is a new adventure that brings both good and bad experiences. Junior year just happens to be less enjoyable than any of the other years. Here’s why:
1.This is around the time people start expecting you to get your life together. They want you to look into jobs and have a future plan. The problem is that you are still just too young to actually put anything into action and its very frustrating.
2.You are an upperclassman, but you are not a senior. You have to sit back and watch them all go on their bar crawls and their senior trips. It’s just a cruel tease and a reminder that junior year is no fun at all.
3.This is the year you and your friends will start turning 21. Unless you are insanely lucky, these birthdays won’t all fall around the same time. This leads to the inevitable truth that someone will be left in the dust, which brings up the important question of, “Do we wait for so-and-so to turn 21 or do we go out without them?” Junior year is where you find out who your real friends are.
4. Despite finally being able to rejoin your squad on the weekends, turning 21 has its downfalls. One of which is the unwanted responsibility of supplying to others. Your days of free drinks are now over because you no longer have the excuse of being underage. Let’s all say a silent prayer for your bank account.
5. Junior year is hands down the hardest year out of the four in terms of academics. It was in high school and it is now. You get all the pressure of real life creeping up on you and come to the realization that you don’t have much time left. You really can’t afford to drop classes or switch your major for the fifth time.
6. As hard as junior year is, it’s also tedious and somewhat boring. You are really just sitting around waiting for senior year to arrive and there’s nothing exciting happening in the meantime.
7. You don’t have a meal plan anymore, which means you quickly learn that you have no idea how to survive on your own. Thus begins the adventure of hunting down underclassmen, making them your friends, and sweet talking them into giving you swipes.
8. Remember how your parents hinted at you to get a part time job when you were a freshman? Well now they are not exactly hinting anymore.
9. No one really pays you attention because Juniors are pretty irrelevant. Freshmen are the babies and they get lots of attention. Sophomores are also pretty insignificant, but they love their lives regardless because they have all the comfort of a dorm, meal plan, and don’t stress about their futures yet. Juniors are out there having to fend for themselves.
10. Once you hit junior year, you might start thinking you want a significant other. However, you are nearing the end of your college career and might not want to have the weight of commitment on your shoulders. Love is nice, but who knows where your lives are going, so there’s a constant debate between being single versus in a relationship.
The good news is, senior year is just around the corner! Stick with it, collegiates. Tough times don’t last, tough people do.