In college, it's so easy to feel lost and alone. Especially at a school with 45,000 other students. Add being a transfer student and having to live off-campus to that equation, and it gets even better.
I spent my freshman year at Kent State University, a pretty big school with a small school-feel in Northeast Ohio. I saw familiar faces daily, and became very close with my group of friends. My walks to class were about 10 minutes, and even that felt long at the time. Even though I had a wonderful group of friends, and I enjoyed being at Kent State for the most part, I was having a hard time adjusting to college.
I soon realized that making the two and a half hour drive home many weekends was hard on me, and I missed my family. This is one of the reasons I made the huge decision to transfers schools. I decided to transfer to a school that would be much closer to my hometown. I thought I had it all figured out: I would get to see my family and best friends from home more, and would be attending an amazing well-known university.
Well I thought wrong...at least at first.
Saying my first semester at OSU was difficult would be an understatement. As a transfer student, I had to live in an off-campus apartment. This made the process of making new friends almost impossible at first. I knew almost no-one. At times, I would walk to a class a mile away and not see one person I knew. I was extremely depressed and felt like nothing was going right.
I was constantly surrounded by people who love OSU so much, and thought there was something wrong with me because I did not feel that at all. My thoughts were honestly my worst enemy at this time. Was this the completely wrong school for me? Had I made a horrible decision to transfer schools? I even considered transferring back to Kent State for a large portion of my first year at OSU.
During my second semester, things began to turn around. I became much closer to my roommates, and knew they were there for me. My sadness about being at Ohio State was still there, however, underneath my outer happiness. I decided to go out on a whim, and go through sorority recruitment at the beginning of Spring semester. One of my roommates was going through too, which made me feel a bit more comfortable about the process. I wasn't even planning on actually joining a sorority at first, I just desperately wanted to meet new people through recruitment. I found a sorority that I instantly felt a sense of comfort with. I decided to join and it was one of the best decisions I have made.
Flash forward to a year later, and I feel much more comfortable at OSU. I am now a part of an amazing group of women who I know I can be myself around, I am a director of a student organization, and I joined a wonderful Odyssey community. I also love being closer to home, and getting to see my family and best friends more. I have a new sense of confidence I've never felt in my entire life. There are still many hard times, though. Sometimes I still feel lost at a school with thousands of students. But I now know I have friends I can rely on when it gets tough.
I went from hating everything about being at this school, to having so many great experiences that I am grateful for. My advice is to be patient, even when you think everything sucks. Give things some time to work out on their own.
Thank you Ohio State, for being patient with me even when I was unappreciative of you at first.
