College is a time of many firsts. For some, college represents the first time experiencing freedom and a sense of independence. This is particularly exciting with so many on-campus opportunities, because you can dip your toes into everything. For what is likely the first time, you have complete control over how to spend your day, where to eat, and what to do. But with this independence comes many responsibilities.
Before college, I had never lived on my own before. When my parents left after helping me move in, I freaked out. Sitting on my bed in my dorm room the day I moved in, it hit me that I was going to be all by myself and that I somehow had to manage everything on my own. I didn’t know how I was going to do it — classes only were going to get harder, the number of clubs I’d join would only increase, and tasks that my parents usually took care of for me were my job now. Beyond that, the people who I had grown up with were suddenly not around anymore, and I had to form a brand-new community of friends from scratch.
I’d be lying if I said that even now, I’m not overwhelmed. Yet slowly but surely, I find myself getting used to my new life. I know I’m hardly at a point to be giving advice, but I’m certainly aware of the initial challenges I faced that came with being a college student. Here’s what I’ve done over the past three weeks to try and overcome those difficulties.
The little things
One thing I’ve noticed about living on my own is that the responsibilities I was hardly aware of in high school are adding up. Remembering to wash my dishes, buy food, do laundry, and clean my room are all small, yet essential, tasks that I’ve easily forgotten about. What I’ve tried to do recently is to use these activities as break time. If I’ve been studying for a long stretch, I take a quick 10-minute break to wash my dishes or put my laundry in the washer, and this is a nice way to simultaneously utilize my time productively and stretch my legs. Ever since employing this method, I find that these little tasks are much more likely to get done.
Responsibility and self-discipline
This is one thing that has been particularly challenging for me. Being independent, nearly everything I do is self-driven. This might just be my experience, but I find that the amount of homework I get in college is much less than in high school. The majority of the work I have to do is staying up-to-date with coursework — and since this is a task I created for myself, I tend to procrastinate a lot more. To avoid this, I split my work up into doable sections and take a short break after completing each one of these sections so that I don’t get too tired. But managing new responsibilities has been challenging in other ways too, including trying to get to places on time and making sure I’m not sleeping too late. I combat these obstacles by keeping a constant watch on the time, and, for the latter, counting backwards and setting a limit on the time I sleep so that I get at least six to seven hours of sleep per night.
Taking advantage of everything
Before the start of the semester, I had briefly scanned the Northeastern clubs and organizations page to have an idea of what I was interested in joining. I had “shortlisted” my clubs of interest down to about 50, which, obviously, wasn’t an actual possibility. After Fall Fest, my list just became longer as I was inundated with emails from all sorts of new and interesting clubs. My first two weeks on campus were full of various info sessions, and I found myself committed to way more than I could handle. However, I don’t see this as a bad thing. Something I would certainly recommend for incoming freshman is to just go to whatever interests them, even if this creates a packed schedule. If need be, you can drop clubs along the way, but at least you’ll be content knowing that you won’t regret not learning more about a particular club.
Making friends
When coming to college, I thought that making friends would be a piece of cake, because everyone had consistently told me that all college freshmen are in the same boat and that you could approach anybody. And to some degree, this is true. People are very willing to strike up a conversation with you and get to know you. However, making friends wasn’t as easy as it was made out to be. It was surprising to see that a lot of people had already established friend groups in the first week, and initially not having that really stressed me out. Although it can be slow, I’ve found that there have been plenty of opportunities to make friends. Clubs and classes are a great way to start; however, one thing I recommend is to show up to classes and club meetings early, because that way you will be able to talk to the people around you. Your dorms are also great resources — making plans, even simple ones with dorm-mates, and meeting up in common hangout spots are a great way to meet all kinds of new people.
Eating
As someone who gets junk food cravings, making sure that I keep myself in check and eat balanced meals is very important for me. Meal plan options for freshmen are pretty stringent, and even with 12 meal swipes, the lowest option, I find that I have very little flexibility to eat at places other than the dining halls. However, there are so many places on campus that take dining dollars and have healthy options, like B-Good or Subway. Even within the dining halls themselves, there are plenty of options to customize your meals. For example, one of my favorite options is the omelette station at Stetson East. I can have my omelette made exactly to my liking, and make sure I’m eating healthy by adding vegetables.