I’m sure that I am not the only one who looks back at freshman year of college with a lot of good memories, but also some bad ones to match. As a rising junior, I look back and think about all of the things I would change. I think about how much better a freshman year I could have if I knew everything that I know now. Then I realize that I wouldn’t have gained the lessons I know now without making the mistakes I did as a typically naive freshman. With that said, here is a list of some of the most important things that I learned through my experience of being a freshman in college.
1. Your decisions begin to have a lot more weight.
As a freshman, you are probably 18 years old and coming into a whole new setting of responsibility. It’s scary at first because if you have a little hiccup here and there, they can begin to pile up. No more reminders to go to class, do your homework, eat right, go to the work, et cetera. Before you know it, that one class you skipped turns to five, and you fall so far behind it’s hard to get back on track. That healthy food your parents always bought turns to late-night pizza, and you find yourself with what you thought was the myth — the freshman 15. For the first time in your life, no one is constantly there looking over your shoulder to make sure you’re doing everything right. It becomes a matter of truly fending for yourself for the first time. It’s a time where you really have to learn to manage your time correctly and sincerely become responsible for yourself so get your work done, go to the gym, be yourself and meet as many people as you possibly can! Believe it or not, before someone had been there doing it for you the whole time, even when you didn’t know it.
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2. The kind of person you really are.
With this newfound freedom in the life of a college freshman you, and you alone, make all of your choices. This means you get to become who you really want to be. There is no more direct force from an overseer, parent or even friend to do something that they wanted you to do. Everything is on you. No longer did I have to be something that someone else wanted me to be. There was no need to dress with a certain brand that everyone in high school wore or listen to the kind of music that everyone else seemed to listen to. There is now no more “popular” crowd. You can make the choice to become a totally new person than you were before, especially if that person you want to be is a little different. It is the perfect opportunity to reinvent oneself and start fresh. Capitalizing on the fact that you can start over and be anyone that you want to can be one of the most pivotal points of freshman year.
3. To find your type of “people."
After being around the same people in your hometown and school system for 18 years, the enormous waves of new people can be overwhelming. The different kinds of people and personalities can seem shocking at first. The funny thing I realized as a freshman is that throughout high school everyone tended to rub off on one another creating this base layer of what is considered normal. Once you're in college, that entire dynamic changes. You now meet different people every day instead of being in a routine of seeing the exact same faces for four years. I'm not saying that there aren't people similar to you who can be good friends with you in high school, but a lot of people go through changes and find out who they really are in college. All I'm saying is that the atmosphere of college is far from the typical sort of “clique” you may find in your typical high school. College simply creates a more genuine approach to finding your niche because it is a much less "regulated" by others and also because of how, like I said earlier, you are more likely to make your own decision with less influence from those around you. So be nice to everyone, because everyone can teach you something, but find your type of person your freshman year because those are the people that will mean the most to you later in life.
4. The importance of thinking toward the future.
As a freshman, unless you have your whole life figured out — which you probably don’t — the classes you take are going to be broad. The sense is to get a general idea of a lot of things so you can narrow them down afterward, and hopefully figure out what it is exactly you want to do with the rest of your life. Freshman year taught me that through this trial and error of classes it is a lot easier to see the big picture of, not only subjects to study, but also what it is you can achieve and accomplish in your life. The subjects you become fascinated with go on to mold how you act in everyday life. One class you take leads to a club or activity, which leads to something else until it falls into what you love to do. You begin to see the world differently from the way you once did at a younger age, and this makes all the difference as you start to think about the future. Freshman year is the year you begin to see yourself as who you are and who you want to be.
5. What you don’t want.
While you're making all of the decisions for yourself in this new world, you’re thrown into that is college, you find exactly what you do like. With that, however, you find exactly what you don’t like. This comes into play everywhere while first at college. In and out of the classroom, you are able to see exactly what you don’t want. My freshman year, I was enrolled in intro biology, and after the first class, I knew immediately it wasn't for me and dropped out. I figured business and writing may suit me a little better. Outside of the classroom I also found several things I do not like. One, in particular, is having several roommates (sorry guys). I was in a quad and having three different roommates made it easy to see habits I found as simply annoying. This went on to show me that even though someone may have lived their entire life sharing a room with a sibling, these new roommates are not your siblings, to say the least. This makes the ordeal of living with someone very different and no walk in the park. Nonetheless, living with several roommates taught me how to be a good roommate and how to be respectful of people's things and personal space. This means that even though disagreements and other speed bumps come into play, you have to learn how to work through them.
Some Honorable Mentions:
- After 2 a.m. it is probably a better idea to just go home, trust me.
- Don't be the "hero" who tries to funnel whatever anyone puts in it.
- Try not to burn bridges because you never know who you'll need down the long road of four years at a school.
Freshman year was quite an experience, to say the least. You stay up a little later cramming for exams, putting the last touches on an essay or even playing video games with the kids you met down the hall. You try new things like different foods, clubs and classes. Most importantly, you meet the people you'll never forget doing the things you'll sometimes never remember.
Alice: “Where should I go?"
The Cheshire Cat: "That depends on where you want to end up."
― Lewis Carroll, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass"
