Freshmen year is certainly like no other — from orientation to re-learning how to make friends, to experiencing your first college finals! As a freshmen, although you may feel like you’ve found your footing and have completed blended in, looking back now I can see distinct differences:

1. How you approach a midterm.

As a freshman if you open your midterm and realize that you don’t know how to answer questions, your eyes may well-up out of fear. Once you have made it past that first year and experience the same experience, your reaction is to stare at the words and chuckle because you knew that you were going to work your butt off and still be in this position.

2. How you approach free food.

Everyone likes free food — freshman and upperclassmen alike! But the extent of this love for free food is vastly different. For a freshmen, free food is a nice change up from the meal plans they are used to eating; for upperclassmen, free food is like a magnet, and it might as well get the top priority, even over going to class.

3. How you approach walking to classes.

By the time you are an upperclassman, you’ve found the optimal way to get to your classes, whether that be by minimizing your time, walking less outdoors, or going another way to avoid certain people and slow walkers.

4. How you approach what to do when you’re tired.

As you’re settling in freshman year, you learn that you may need to take naps here and there. But, every year after that, they are basically a built in necessity in your schedule.

5. How you approach home-sickness.

It makes sense that freshman feel more home-sick, and this sentiment still remains for upperclassmen. But once you’ve finished up your first year at school and you go home, eventually you realize that you miss college and all of your friends from college.

6. How you approach your major.

Most freshman come in with their mind kind of made as to what they are going to do with their lives, and if they don’t, they think they’ll figure it out over this year. A lot of upperclassmen still don’t know what they’re going to do with their lives and are convinced that it will still remain a mystery for at least a few more years.