Heading to college for the first time can be very overwhelming, but each day brings new adventures and challenges that shape you into a more independent and mature individual. It also brings more lessons learned, and this is what the first semester taught me.

1. Time management.

College is not as much class time as high school, but the amount of work required on your own is much greater. So, learning to balance accomplishing work successfully, retaining information well, unwinding, activities, and socializing was a rather large task when I got to school. However, I have no difficulty with it now.

2. Living in a clean room leads to a happier and less anxious version of myself.

My room back home definitely is not the cleanest, and when I lived at home, I did not make my bed every day. In fact, I did not see much point seeing that I was just going to get back in it that night. But now that I live in my room and spend extended periods of time there, my bed must be made and my things organized. Even when I go back home, I still make my bed each morning even though I do not spend much time in it, and I think that that is a good habit to have! If my desk gets cluttered with papers during my studies, I must clean it before I can go to bed.

3. How to best study for me.

I was not one for too much studying in high school. My schedule did not offer much time for it, so I did not do as much as I could have otherwise. Coming to college and realizing how much more time I have to dedicate to school left plenty of opportunity for me to experience a variety of studying techniques and figure out what works for me. I have discovered the glory in rewriting notes, reading notes aloud, and rediscovered the beauty of flashcards.

4. Talking on the phone is amazing.

In high school, I absolutely hated talking on the phone. So much so that when I would receive a phone call from anyone other than a parent, I would simply ignore it. Now I look forward to calling my people from high school and sometimes just call up a random friend just to hear their voice. And the beauty of being able to call someone on my cell is that every time I have to walk home alone in the dark, I don't have to feel so alone and scared.

Overall, college has been an adjustment. But so far, I feel like I have learned some pretty important things about myself and how to get through each day.