Going into my freshman year of college I thought that it would be one of the greatest experiences I have ever had.

That didn't turn out to be completely true.

While these past nine months have given me many new friends, an awesome job, and a sense of being independent, it was not all a positive experience.

This past year has given me two ex-boyfriends, distance from friends I had known my whole life, the worst grades I have ever received in a class, and debt.

Through all the positives and the negatives I learned lessons.

You have to trust that God knows what he's doing, whether things seem to be going well, or going terribly. He closes doors that at the time seem to be slammed in your face, but in hindsight were closed at the perfect time and in the perfect way.

College teaches you a lot about yourself personally. You are for the first time in your life faced with challenges you have never had to face before. Living on campus, you may learn how to live with someone else for the first time in your life. For some people, you had to learn how to do laundry for the first time. For me, I had to learn to balance school, work, and a social life. I improved my laundry-doing abilities, and I learned how to find out more about myself: through my mistakes.

Everyone makes mistakes in their life. Everyone makes mistakes everyday.

Everyone makes mistakes in relationships, and I am not an exception.

I could've put in more effort to stay in touch with friends from high school.

I could have, and should have, put more effort into my studies. While I ended first semester with a 4.0, the second semester did not go as smoothly.

I could have done better with saving and not spending, and paying off interest on loans.

That's life.

Could have, would have, should have.

You live and you learn.

Relationships come and they go. They only go one of two ways: you either break up or you spend the rest of your life together.

Friends come and they go. Some people aren't meant to be in your life forever. Everyone comes into our lives to teach us something, whether we learn the lesson or not. In coming they can teach us, in staying they can teach us, and in leaving they can teach us.

School is important, but it's not the only important thing all the time. College, as cliche as it sounds, is about finding yourself. Finding what you want to do with the rest of your life, finding the people you want by your side for the rest of your life, and you can't find all of that with your nose in an overpriced textbook.

While you shouldn't blow all the money you make on unnecessary junk all the time, once in a while it is okay to treat yourself to something. Buy some new clothes, buy some new movies, as long as you're also thinking and planning on paying for necessary expenses in the future. Whether it be student loans, car payments, phone bills, or whatever.

So for those about to head into your first year of college this fall, I warn you: it will be everything you expect, and also the complete opposite of what you expect.

You'll change more in one year of college than you did in four years of high school.

Have fun.

Good luck.