“Change is the only constant”

Every day is an experience. Whether we sit at home and binge watch netflix, or are out hiking at a state park, each day shapes who we become.

Take college for example, especially freshman year. Although this year I will just be a sophomore, I can already say freshman year will go down in history for being the most influential year of my life. That first year leaving home gives you a strange feeling, like you’ll not only miss everyone around you, but you’ll miss the person you are at that moment, and in that place.

When your alarm goes off on the first day of class, you shoot out of bed, and the whole year seems like it will be a breeze. Yet, as the first semester goes on, it gets progressively more difficult to slide the bar across the touch screen just to turn off the alarm. It becomes all too common to arrive late to the first class of the day, or to not show up at all. “This class is easy, I don’t need to go to lecture” is too often heard across the campus wide population.

Yet when we think the class is “too easy,” sometimes we get our final mid term score back and come to the scary realization that the grade that was given wasn’t a mistake, the teacher did not grade it wrong, and that something just isn’t right. Why didn’t we do as good as we had at the beginning of the semester?

Believe it or not, it’s the lifestyle change we all belong to; we are surrounded by new challenges everyday. It constantly begs the question, does college change people?

Oftentimes many of us come home during winter, spring, or summer break and hear the dreaded line “you’ve changed.” Whether or not you believe it’s for the better, it makes us question if we have become someone we accept, or if we’ve turned into what our college culture has expected from us.

Although drinking has progressively become a more common activity among high school students, many young adults of my generation didn’t take a sip of alcohol until their first college party. We’ve learned to entertain ourselves without mind altering substances, yet walking into an exchange, or apartment party, it’s inescapable. At this point, for it or against it, many of us fall into the disguised pressures of our peers and learn to accept what we have become.

The precious intimate moments of finding a relationship get lost when words become slurs and chatting turns into one night stands. Even though deep down, we long for true, meaningful relationships, these actions get lost in the words “it’s college, I’m just having fun.”

Even accepting the idea of doing things alone, and sometimes enjoying it, constitutes as change. Granted, everyone enjoys doing things like homework, eating lunch, or working out with friends, but in college, everyone has a different schedule and many of the known group activities become independent ones. In high school many of us might not have been willing to step foot into a lunch room alone, yet in college, it’s a time to collect thoughts after class and prepare for the next one.

Although we may not have accepted ourselves this way in years past, we cannot let the past define us. We grow, we mature, and we are still the lovable person that everyone once knew.

Some may define these changes as your whole self, some may define them as your morals, but either way, every day we change the way we do things, say things, and see things. We must learn to accept that not every class can be extremely easy, and sometimes kissing someone who isn't "the one" doesn't define who you are.

It’s not to say any of this is wrong because, well, it’s not. Everyone has their own path to go down, and it’s up to each individual to decide how to experience the best four years of their life.

Maybe change is the wrong word to be using. Maybe we should express our growth as evolving; just as a caterpillar evolves into a beautiful butterfly, we evolve into bigger, more mature versions of ourselves. Ultimately, we all change. It's inevitable. However, it's how we perceive ourselves when someone says that we've changed, which ultimately determines our true identity.

With that, I leave my favorite quote: “The hardest battle you will ever have to fight is between who you are now, and who you want to be.” -unknown