If you're anything like I was at the end of high school, you thought that the college transition was going to be easy. You thought that you don't need mom and dad anymore, and you're going to be just fine on your own. You'll make lots of friends and have the time of your life, and the "transition" that everyone keeps trying to warn you about won't have any effect on you at all, because you're ready for this.
If you're anything like I am now, you're beginning to realize that this transition is not easy at all. You miss your mom and dad and you're kind of fine on your own, but it's more like you're a four year old learning how to swim for the first time. Meeting people wasn't as easy as you thought it was going to be, and no, you definitely were not as prepared as you thought you were.
Maybe you were the opposite of how I was, and you knew from the beginning that this was going to be hard. There's a few things that have been helpful to me while I've been learning how to adjust my reality and make myself more comfortable in this unknown world that I came into completely unprepared for, and it may help you, too, even if our outlook on college before we got here was different.
For example, last weekend, a bunch of my guy friends dragged me out to a party after a not so great day, and it turned out to be one of the best nights of my college experience. We danced all night long and had the best time, and at the end of the night I couldn't even remember why my day was so bad. Going out to parties isn't for everyone, but going will give you the opportunity to meet a lot of your classmates and make new friends, which can sometimes be hard in a classroom setting. Obviously, college parties have a reputation, but what I've learned as that they are what you make them to be, and no one is going to make you do anything you don't want to do, especially if you stick with your friends.
Something else that has helped me was finding somewhere relaxing to study outside of your dorm. My favorite place on campus at Trinity is the terrace on the CSI fourth floor, where you can feel a nice breeze and look out on the San Antonio skyline while you study. Whether it's the coffee shop at the library, or in a hammock in the quad by your dorm building, finding somewhere that makes you happy outside of the comfort of your dorm room can sometimes be key to making your campus feel more like home.
So maybe you haven't admitted it to yourself yet, or maybe you have, but I think that we all realize at some point during your first semester, the transition into this strange new world called college is actually pretty difficult. The bottom line is, don't get scared and give up and know that whatever is happening to you has probably already happened to someone else, and more than likely, they made it through just fine.
