Coming to college from high school is a big transition. For one, you are independent for the first time in your life. You can no longer come home and complain to your parents about your day or have them nearby to comfort you when your friendships aren’t going well. For me, that was my major issue. I remember thinking that college was going to be perfect and that I was always going to be happy and love my life. However, the complete opposite happened.
I called my parents every night, crying on the phone, telling them how unhappy I was. My parents tried to tell me to stay positive, but I was so lonely, and I didn’t have many friends. I did have friends from high school at UF, but I never found time to connect with them.
In addition, I was also falling behind on homework and was struggling to keep up. College is not like high school where you get homework assigned regularly and are told specifically what to do. In college, homework is assigned at the professor’s discretion and is graded according to their individual criteria. I had Calculus homework due once a week, and it was easy to forget about and leave unfinished until the last day.
Another issue is that I came with the high expectation of having a roommate I could become best friends with. However, this was not the case. My roommate was an international student who had no real intention of making friends and was always absorbed in her studies. Luckily, my suitemates were people I could get along with and befriend.
Ultimately, my grades at the end of the first semester were not the best. I ended up with a C in Chemistry, which was disappointing since I had higher grades in high school.
After my first semester, I was relieved to go home, back to my own comfortable bed and the town I knew. At holiday parties, people would keep asking me how college was going. But the truth was, I didn’t want to talk about it. Sometimes, I feel that the college experience is glorified a bit, and many students enter college with high hopes. I also feel like parents have this attitude, especially if they did not attend college in the United States.
My second semester was a little better. I had adjusted to the style of learning and keeping up with assignments. However, I continued to wait until the last minute to do assignments even though I was able to finish them on time.
Unfortunately, nothing improved in terms of friendship with my roommate. We were able to coexist, but she was never the type of friend I could talk with about any issue. Luckily, I was able to make friends in my classes and hang out with them on the weekends. I was also able to find some clubs to join and meet more people that way.
My grades improved a little during my spring semester, and I was able to get my GPA high enough to be acceptable for internships. Ultimately, that summer, I did have an internship with Lockheed Martin.
If you are currently in high school and reading this, keep in mind that college isn’t entirely terrible, but it may not be the perfect experience initially. You’ll have good days and bad days, and you won’t be happy all the time. But that’s how it is. Everything balances out.
Now, in my second year of college, I can say that I enjoy college. I have a good number of friends, and life feels normal again. After a week, I got back into the routine of college life. I was able to see a great number of familiar faces and feel at home. My classes went off to a smooth start, and I ended up joining more organizations. College is very enjoyable now, and I love it here. After adjusting to college life, I realize that this is the place I want to be and the people I want to be with. The adaptation period was rough and not pleasant, but I would not change a thing about it. Ultimately, I had to face the struggle to realize that going different places in life is not easy but at the end, is worth it.