In the upcoming week or so, I will be starting the second semester to my “junior” year. Which means after this semester, I have one year left and then I’m considered a college graduate. The thing is, I thought I would’ve been saying/writing this sentence awhile back. I thought I would be calling myself a college graduate by now but I can’t.

When I started college, I declared a major in chemistry with a pre-pharmacy track. My goal was to work in cancer research or to land a job in the hematology/oncology clinic at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. If I had been smart and learned from past experiences, I would’ve realized this was not going to happen from the start but I kept hope. So much hope that when I failed CHE121 the first time around, I took another jab at it that summer and failed again. With that said, I was out $1,000 that I didn’t have to pay back to my school and a low enough GPA to turn financial aid into nothing but a dream. I decided the chemistry dream was no longer and started to take time off from school.

In the meantime, the class I graduated with from my high school continued on their ways and their paths and I’ve watched plenty of them succeed. I’ve seen graduation photo after graduation photo and pictures from internships or jobs landed right out of college. I’ve seen some of my peers travel and see all of these neat places and being the person that I am, I compared myself to each and every single person.

At the time, when I dropped out of school for a little bit, I didn’t think anything of my peers. I missed school, yes, and I missed being in the classroom atmosphere, but the goal was to save up to come back. After counting enough lucky stars and a somewhat unfortunate event, I landed myself back in college. Something that was becoming just as much of a dream as the concept of financial aid. And with that said, the next goal was to build my GPA back up. So I did. I took as many menial classes as I could along with a “Career Exploration” course that would not only boost my GPA but give me a little push as far as where it would be major wise that I would want to go.

To this day, my GPA is way, way higher than it used to be and I’ve found a major I excel in and love. As far as what I want to do, I can’t say but I’m sure I still have the time to find what it is. Today I got on Facebook and found that students from graduating classes after me were in their senior year or graduating now and I couldn’t help but stop and compare myself. There was a wave of disappointment to wash over me and to beat myself up over how far behind I’ve become. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how far I actually have come and that it had to take time or it wouldn’t have happened at all.

My advice to incoming freshmen: don’t set a time limit for yourself. Yes, getting a degree in four years is a wonderful idea but if it takes you more time than this, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. College is a wonderful time to practice balance and time management skills and start exploring who you are and what it is you want to do. Nothing worth having will ever come easy and it’s going to take a lot of work and time to get where you want to be. But if you allow yourself the time that you need, I promise it will be one of the best experiences you’re going to have.