The first semester of college, new classes, new people, new places, new everything. It can definitely be a little rough at first, but along the way you learn a lot, most of which has nothing to do with the content of your classes.

Yes, you read that correctly, I can confidently say I know much more now than I did coming into this new chapter of my life, but only a small portion of it has to do with calculus or Spanish or writing.

Instead, I learned how to really just branch off on my own and become an independent person.

Don't get me wrong, I still rely on my family a lot, probably more than your average college student, but compared to myself at the beginning of the semester, I'm definitely making progress and truly "adulting."

At the beginning of the semester, I cried because of how much I missed home in the beginning and went home every single weekend. Now, it's the end of the semester and I'll be here for almost three weeks straight without seeing my family.

It doesn't sound like a lot, but considering my mentality at the beginning, I've come a long way.

Aside from the emotional aspect of this new experience, I'm also just learning how to really live on my own.

Like I said earlier, I do still have my family for a lot of support, but now, I do my own laundry, buy my own groceries (sometimes), and make my own food, or at least go get it myself. These are definitely simple tasks, but they're ones I hadn't been doing before. I really was overly dependent on others and now that I'm realizing this, I'm learning and growing so much as a person.

I know how important all of the material I learn in classes is, but that's what I expected at college, now I'm beginning to see the beginning of my adult life-shaping and I'm getting really excited for it.

But most importantly, something that I've learned is that all of the simple things I've started to do for myself now are things that my mom mostly used to be doing for me, so I just want to thank her because these things do all seem quite simple and do get overlooked, but when they are all piled on top of one another, they add up.

So overall, as my first semester comes to an end, I can definitely say I am getting a great college experience and learning a ton of new things, inside the classroom and out.