When I graduated from high school, I can’t say I was extremely ecstatic about going to a university. I had just finished more than a decade of schooling, so the idea of voluntarily enrolling in four more years had very little appeal. I was quick to voice this creeping dread to my mother, who has the force behind my scholastic efforts. Having never gone to a four-year university, she could only offer so much support, but was quick to spout out a phrase I would soon come to dread: “College is the best four years of your life!”
As we move through our adolescence, we are so often and unknowingly preconditioned to harbor specific notions about college via media. Movies like Pitch Perfect, St. Elmo’s fire, and Legally Blonde were the top influences in shaping my own ideas of college. We are shown this version of academia that has so little to do with academia. Scene after scene, we bore witness to parties, hookup culture, clubbing, and whatever else the early 2000’s deemed fun. We were lead to believe that from 18 to 22, our collegiate lives would be all fun with little consequence.
Of course, most of us were quick to realize that this idea was nowhere near true, but I can’t help but feel that it still influenced my expectations. No amount of binge watching “Day in the life of-” vlogs on YouTube or the Netflix college category would prepare me for what was to come. By the end of my first week of Freshman year, I was ready to throw in the towel. I was away from home for the first time in my life, living with two other people in a tiny room, already panicking over midterms, and suffering from the flu. I remember often asking myself how things could get any worse, and it makes me laugh, because I had no idea that things really could get worse. I ended that first year in a tough situation: no friends on-campus, sharing a Sophomore dorm with five strangers, and a D+ in American Politics.
By my second year, I at least had some semblance of what the day-to-day grind of college was. I just had to worry about making friends and not enemies out of my new roommates. Luckily, my connection with them was almost instant, and I am so grateful to whatever random-generator-gods that matched us up to share that tiny dorm apartment. My second year at UCSB was actually looking up now that I had friends I could be myself around and had a better grip on classwork. I was excited to see what the rest of the year has in store for me. I think those two and a half quarters were the best I had ever had at UCSB, and I can’t help but wonder how different my life would be now if the pandemic never happened.
Junior year was spent at home and quarantined, gazing dully across rows and rows of blank zoom screens. What fun I had my second year had been completely stripped away, and all I had left was the academic side of things. Obviously, this fact did little to console me, and I struggled horrifically throughout the year. At the time, I felt that I had lost so much more than just time: I couldn’t see my friends, I was sequestered at home, and everyone was terrified of getting sick. When the email that we would be coming back to campus for Fall 2021, I was over the moon.
My fourth year, however, could only be described as rough. It felt like I was reliving my first year all over again. I missed my home, my dogs, and old friends. I was living in an apartment filled to the brim with black mold and had a landlord that did not care nor believe us. Nights were cold because the windows wouldn’t shut all the way and doors were too small for their doorways. There was constant animosity between housemates over who would be cleaning what, and how it would be done. It constantly felt like nothing was sacred or personal, and that quickly eroded my spirit. I was absolutely miserable, and I could only blame myself for not having the foresight to predict such a state, as ridiculous as it sounds.
Now, at week nine of Spring Quarter 2022, I can say with absolute certainty that I cannot wait to get the hell out of here and graduate from this university. There were moments of intense euphoria, but they are so outweighed by the strain of a pandemic, mental health issues, and academic trauma, that I cannot say with full certainty that they made this whole experience worth it. I am so thankful to be able to graduate with my degree, and beyond proud of my friends who will as well, but thinking of the amount of grief it took to get here really puts things into perspective.
College was not the best four years of my life, and I admit this with fervor. However, I believe the experience this university granted me has supplied my with the foundations of making the rest of my life better in general. Life lessons are hard-fought battles, and some go through them sooner than others; my time just happened to be during these past few years. I have grown into a strong and capable young woman because of this experience, but I will admit that I hope the next set of life lessons has better timing.