Starting college is like starting a whole new chapter of your life.
Gone with the high school babysitting, and someone to hold your hand and remind you when everything is due, and to head to lunch. Gone with getting other teachers that like you to write you excused notes or trying to help you grab a hold of that extra time to study. Gone with someone telling you to get to class and be on time with your life. This college life you are now living is all about you. The issues you face from changing from a high school senior at the top of the pond, to a college freshman back at the bottom.
There’s a lot first-time college students face such as...
1. Freshman 15.
The words that make every freshman girl cringe. No one wants to go home for a holiday or a break and only to be told by their family they have become a victim of the famous freshmen 15.
2. Extended Time Being Hours Away From Home.
Colleges students could be anywhere from a couple of hours to a couple of days drive from their families. Talking to college freshmen who is currently spending their first time away from home, it's hard being a couple hours flight from their families. Which have been their support systems since the day they were born.
3. Time Management Problems.
When faced with work from their many classes, events they would like to attend to experience college, and even student jobs time management is a hard thing that college students try to learn.
4. Anxiety.
Colleges are bigger than high schools and even middle schools. Going from a small scale to a bigger one often brings on social anxiety.
5. Depression.
Being a college student away from home means learning to stand on your own two feet and getting things done. Going from relying on yourself.
6. Spreading yourself too thin.
Wanting to get involved in everything to make friends would make you spread yourself thin. College kids end up going through this more often times than not to make friends and make connections.
7. Trying to find where you fit in.
Stepping out on your own means trying to find where on the campus you fit in. Many college kids are faced with the burning question, "Where do I fit in at?"
8. Making a whole new set of friends.
Leaving your hometown behind means leaving all your friends and family behind and making new friends.
9. Being lonely.
The downside of leaving your hometown means until you find people that get you, college kids are often lonely, which is another factor to college kids having depression.
10. Being homesick.
Sometimes you just want your family with you and everything your use too. Most college freshmen are homesick within their first few weeks of their new college life.
11. Being hurt away from home.
It's bad enough getting hurt while being away from home. But it's another feeling when your hurt while being away from home and your family is hours away from being with you.
12. Relationship changes.
I hear freshmen talk about it all the time. One minute you meet a person in your class and you think you connect with them. The next they are a totally different person and you realize you wanted friends so you ignored how they were. College is filled with relationship issues.
13. Choosing a major.
This is the time to figure out what you want and what you want the rest of your life to be like. College freshmen (and even others) struggle with that thought and decision. Which leads to changing their major time and time again.
14. Stress.
From classes to papers, to homework, to quizzes, to student organizations and midterms. College often stresses out freshman and even seniors.
15. Self Confidence.
College freshmen often lose their self-confidence trying to find themselves in this new chapter of their life.
College is a lot of a person. Especially when making the transition from teen to now an adult who is in charge of making their own decisions.
But one thing for sure is, college teaches you a lot about yourself. It forces you to re-examen your life and everything about you. It forces you to find out who you are and what makes you tick. Yes it hard, but who said it would be easy?
