It’s currently Thanksgiving break, and I am excited for all the delicious food and more food. Did I say food? However, in one week I will be back at Ithaca College preparing myself for the last month of my first semester. How have I already been a college student for three whole months? I feel like I was in middle school just last week. Part of me wants to say, “I’ve learned so much about myself at college,” but I haven’t. However, I do feel that I'm better equipped to express myself at IC.
In high school there are cliques and groups that compress themselves to continuity, and seemingly, they never change. There’s a structure and a comfort involved with who you become friends with throughout elementary, middle and high school. In college that doesn’t exist at the same extent to which it did in your home town. When you go to college, you may not know anyone there, and maybe you know a few people, but there are always so many people to meet. You don’t automatically know if someone has played soccer for the past 10 years, or if they’ve been in every musical in their high school. There are no preconceived notions about who you are or who you want to be. So much in college is left to the unknown, and it’s all left for us to figure out.
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For the longest time, I never thought I would make it this far — to be a college student. It was always something people talked about, but I couldn’t picture myself doing it. Here I am, happy, strong and dedicated. The entire experience seems surreal all too often as if I might wake up at home in any given moment. Or my mom might come pick me up saying, “Okay that was fun, time to go home.” It’s like I’m waiting for the glass vase to drop and shatter across the floor, but it’s currently suspended in mid-air as if time has stopped or at least is moving at an excruciatingly slow pace. The only issue is that I don’t know when said vase will drop.
But there’s one month left, and I hope that the vase stays suspended for at least that long. This month will be testing my limits like no other. Finals are around the corner, and I need to prove that I can not only survive in college, but thrive academically and socially. My friends are all so unique and they’re unapologetically themselves. Healthy friendships are so much easier to find in college. In high school so many people live in a little bubble and that bubble usually pops in college. Living in a bubble isn’t always a bad thing, but being open to your community is so much more rewarding. I feel apart of something bigger than myself at college. While I’m excited to spend the week with family and friends, I’m more excited to tell them about everything I have experienced.
