From the moment we're born, people have expectations of who we'll be and how we'll get there. However, as we get older, we start to have a different set of expectations for ourselves. From wanting to be a straight-A student to making a ton of friends, to figuring out your career path, it's easy to overwhelm ourselves with trying to achieve these goals we have for ourselves. As more people are getting ready to either begin their college years or prepare to leave them behind, it is also important to talk about what happens when some of these expectations aren't met.
When I first started college two years ago, I had no idea what to expect. I was eagerly hoping that it would be drastically different from high school and that I would love my college as much as everyone else seemed to love theirs. I spent the months before I started college looking at a bunch of Instagram posts hoping that I'll make as many friends as my peers or that I would go out and meet new people like everyone else was doing. I was also hoping that I would finally be able to figure out what I wanted to do with my life just like everyone else. So, as I moved into my dorm room and went through my first week of classes as a college student, I was upset that nothing was turning out the way that I planned.
Going to a school that has more commuters than residents made it more difficult for me to make friends that I would get along with, especially since people in my dorm never seemed to want to talk to anyone. I was shocked at first that all those YouTube videos I watched about what to expect when starting college lied to me about that. As I was trying to figure out the best way to make friends, I tried to do what I did during all my other years of schooling: talk to people in my classes. After being forced to do those wonderful icebreakers that college students love so much, I continued to fall short and realize I had absolutely nothing in common with my classmates except for the fact that we didn't declare a major yet. How was I going to explain to my family and friends that I wasn't enjoying college my first semester? How was I going to tell them that I tried everything I could think of and even looked into different organizations and still couldn't make friends?
After having an extremely uneventful first semester of college, I managed to get decent grades and get one step closer to figuring out what I wanted to do with my life. While that one step was a baby step, it helped me realize what I didn't want to be. I also became best friends with my roommate who is still my roommate to this day and made a few friends during my second semester and also in my second year. While I didn't go to any parties during my first year like everyone else I knew, I still managed to have some fun memories with the friends I made that I will remember for many years to come. So, if you're upset that you don't seem to be having a picture-perfect college experience, just know that everything will work out in the end, but it'll never be in the way that you expect.
