Dear Freshman Brittany,

I know you are so excited for this whole college thing, and you are all wrapped up in the excitement of club inductions and new friends, but I just wanted to give you a little heads up about the next three years.

That girl you are rooming with—she will be your best friend for the next year. She will see you at your best and your worst. She may throw the box of tissues at you when you cry instead of hugging you, but enjoy every minute you spend with her. She won't be your roommate forever.

The bearded guy you saw in Gano and said, "Holy crap, I didn't know Father Abraham went here!"—he will be your best friend for years to come. Talk to him sooner. Just go say hi. Do it. Be patient with him because he is new at the college thing just like you are, so he's a little awkward. (But so are you. You just don't see it.) Please don't be so weird around him, and please please try not to cry so much. He will be your rock through all kinds of hardships, so open up to him and let him learn everything about you. I promise he won't run away.

Do your homework early. Over the three years of college you will have, you will learn that if you are able to do semester assignments early, DO IT. You will see your peers struggle to finish things on time and have to scramble to make things up once they've missed deadlines. Don't be like that, Brittany. You can do better than that. You know how to manage your time and be productive. Don't lose that skill.

Remember how easy everything was in high school? It may feel like college will be like that too, but don't worry, after all the gen-ed classes, they get harder. Your academic life will push you to your limits both intellectually and emotionally. Embrace the struggle. You will grow so much and learn so much about yourself. You are capable of so much more than you think.

Don't eat so much crap. Please. You thought you were so fat in middle school and high school, but surprise, you will have to buy new jeans because you kept eating so much bad food. Just don't. You are beautiful, so feed your body like a beautiful person does.

You will meet hundreds of people on this campus. You will not like all of them. By far. However, they are part of your experience here, so be nice to them all. Make sure you have at least one friend in every class, because it's a lonely route if you don't. Also you never know how close you might end up when you're bonding over mutual hatred for a subject. Make many friends. They don't all have to be super close or some to your room for sleepovers, but it is pleasant to walk around campus and have lots of faces smiling and saying hi.

You should have joined Chorale. They're super fun, and you're gonna be friends with a ton of them anyway, so joining the group would strengthen those relationships and open you up to all kinds of fun opportunities.

Most of all, trust God. You have no idea what you're doing in life or what you're going to do when you leave Freed, and I hate to tell you, but three years later, you still have no idea. He has some kind of plan for your life, and though you don't know what it is, I know it will be amazing. Do everything you can to prepare yourself, but in the end, it is He that will choose where your life goes. Trust Him.

Good luck,

Senior Brittany