I was one of those people who came to college thinking, “I’ll be fine. I’ve been preparing for this and I’ll be alright.”

Well, boy was I wrong.

The first two weeks were a breeze. My classes were easy, I wasn’t having a lot of homework and I was staying on top of whatever assignments I had. And then tests started happening, and I kept getting assigned more and more homework.

I hate to say it, but college has definitely hit me. And it has hit me hard. And if you’re wondering just how hard, I cried today whilst studying because I dropped a Cheeto. If that doesn’t scream, “I’m stressed to the max,’’ I don’t know what will. Nothing I did to prepare to come to college, didn’t prepare me for how much work it was really going to be.

And I’m not the only one in this boat, definitely not. I can go on Snapchat and see people’s stories saying, “Send help,” or something to that extent. We’re all struggling. This is not easy and just because someone else breezed through their freshman year of college, doesn’t mean everybody else will. My roommates and I sit in our common room, all doing homework together, and more than likely someone is going to scream or yell out in frustration. We’re overwhelmed with homework and tests and a lot of us are physically and mentally drained.

This is the week before fall break, which means midterms.

It has been long nights of studying and pulling my hair in frustration. And a lot of, “I definitely just took an L on that midterm,” and pretending like it’s fine. But it’s not because no matter how much I study, I still struggled on every midterm I have taken already. And I can say that some of it has been my fault because unfortunately I don’t have very good study habits.

I know it won’t be this hard the rest of the years, at least I hope not. It’s just especially hard since it’s freshman year and I’m still trying to adjust to this new lifestyle. Thankfully, I’m not in this alone because I have been blessed with a group of friends that are here for me. We’re all struggling, but we’re going to get through it.

Although, for this semester anyways, I’m gracefully taking these low blows until I finally learn my lesson on how to study and manage my time.