When you’re a freshman in college, you enter as an 18-year-old and leave as a 19-year-old, if your birthday comes during the school year. Since we are still teenagers, I think it is fair to say we still consider ourselves to be kids.

As a freshman you went out on the weekends without having a care for your responsibilities the next day, or at least I know I did.

Freshman year is the least stressful year of college. Aside from the initial overflow of feelings when you first enter, academically it’s the easiest. You still have time to decide on your major and take core classes to fill your schedule. Also, everything is new to you, and therefore, everything is way more fun and entertaining…

Fast forward a year later, and you hit 20 years old, or as I like to call it, the 20-year-old crisis.

You are a sophomore now, and it hits you; you are no longer a teenager. You are not a kid anymore and you need to realize it.

This is not to say that fun time is over, ‘cause it’s not; college is all the rage, but you have to experience it with a sense of responsibility.

Once you are sophomore, you have experienced most of the party scene that is offered to underage students, and it gets old. Nobody wants to go to the frats every weekend just to have a sweaty frat guy grind up on you the whole time. The only time this is ever fun is if you are hammered. There is no other way to go, because more than likely, everyone around you will be wasted and you will get annoyed. Sometimes you can hit up Brewhouse, but an 18 and over bar can only be fun so often.

So once you hit sophomore year, you’re over the entire scene. It becomes not even worth your time, let alone money. You’re in the weird limbo where you are so close to 21 and being able to go out and do everything that you can taste it. Although the waiting sucks, everyone goes through it. In the meantime, you will choose wisely when to go out, which will more than likely be when there is a special occasion.

Otherwise, get ready to sulk in your room or apartment with a few friends.

Not only can your age bite you in the butt socially, but academically too.

Now is the time when you declare your major, which is probably one of the hardest decisions you have made up until this point in your life. Deciding what you want to do for the rest of you life is stressful. You will doubt yourself many times and have to stop and ask yourself, “Is this what I really want to do?” “I have so many interests, how do I know which is my passion?” "How do I know I will be successful at this?”

As those thoughts constantly enter your mind, you might have hit a rut like me and have thought, “Wow, I’m not ready for the future or to grow up.” The future is a scary, unknown place. It is the events you are experiencing now that will determine where your future will take you.

College is the time to buckle down academically, but also experience new things and develop friendships. Balancing these things can be a struggle and a good cry every now and then doesn’t hurt, just be sure to experience as much as you can in the time being. That’s the best way to grow up, without regretting it, even if it is inevitable.