One of the scariest things we will ever face in our life is going to college. Many of us move away to a new town, join new organizations, and make new friends. We are expected to study, have a social life, relationships, maybe work, and be healthy. It seems pretty easy to do, and in high school all we wanted to do was graduate and move on to this next chapter of our lives. If you are in high school, here are some things that you can learn from before you get to college. If you have already been through your freshman year of college, hopefully you can relate to the things I have learned in college.
Your self control and motivation directly correlate to how close the end of the semester is.
You start the beginning of each semester very hopeful and excited for all your new classes, but that excitement lessens each week of the semester. By the end, you are searching for every excuse to not complete your homework or to even leave your dorm room. Because leaving your dorm room means looking presentable, and at this point you do not even have the motivation for that.
Group projects seem to be something created by the devil himself.
Even though you know that there are plenty of people smarter than you, it seems that you always get stuck with the group members that do not measure up to your standards. Your partners never ask you about the project until the last minute, so you complete most of it yourself. Another outcome is that they do not care about the work they are doing, therefore, you end up doing the project yourself. Just like a unicorn, it is rare to get amazing partners for group projects.
Remember when you were young and you knew everything there was to know? Wrong: you knew nothing.
Once we hit high school we thought we knew everything we would ever have to know. We anxiously waited to turn 18 because being an adult couldn't possibly that hard. Turns out, once you become an adult, everything you learned your entire life has no purpose in your life. You have to know how to budget your money, create a killer resume and cover letter, change your flat tire and cook for yourself. None of these skills were taught in high school. Adulting is hard, very hard.
If there is free food offered - go!
When you get to college, you are so excited to have so many food options within a five-minute walk of your dorm room. By the end of the first semester there already seems like there is nothing good on campus because you are already so sick of the same restaurants you've been eating at for six months. Usually, at the beginning and end of each semester there are endless options for free food because everyone is either recruiting or celebrating their club. Write down the meeting times and go eat some free food. You might even find a really awesome organization because of going.
Never believe a professor when they tell you "Don't worry, this won't be on the test."
Professors are notorious for saying that the class does does not need to worry about a certain slide on the PowerPoint, or a certain section of the book, but there is a 99 percent chance that there will be one or more questions about it on the next exam. So, you might as well memorize every slide the professor has and every page of your text book. Or, do some educated guessing, which is probably the more likely alternative. And if you are guessing, just know that "C" is the most common answer on multiple choice tests.
If you want a relationship with someone, it will take effort.
When you get to college you will hear "your future spouse could be in this room right now". If you were annoyed with the couples holding hands and kissing in the hallways in high school, just wait until all your friends are getting engaged. You will meet some really awesome people in college, and you may find someone you want to have a relationship with. This relationship may be just a friendship, or way more than that. Just know, it takes a lot of effort. Class, homework, meetings, activities and friends keep you very busy, so you will need to make time when you can. Dating looks a lot different in college, it is doing homework together, walking to class together, sitting in church together and grabbing a quick lunch together. But, if you are willing to put in the effort, it is so worth it.
Check your email before you trudge all the way to class to find out it is cancelled.
Confused from the first snow of the season?
byu/everydayslowmo ingifs
You just walked all the way to class while the snow was blowing in your face and the temperature is below zero. You get to class and see that class is cancelled. You trudge all the way back to your dorm room to see that you got an email this morning that class was cancelled. Then you get upset with yourself because you could have stayed in bed for an extra three hours and watched Netflix.
You do not need a ton of friends, just a couple of really good ones.
You meet so many people during your first semester that it seems like you have more friends than you can manage, but as time goes on, you find your people and you stick with them. You probably won't be best friends with the girl you met at orientation. You probably won't be best friends with the people you went to high school with, but you will find your group, and they will be there for you no matter
what.
Take the time to do what you love.
You will spend countless hours doing homework, studying for tests and reading textbooks. Make sure you are taking time to do things that you love to do because otherwise you will not enjoy your time in college. Take a break from studying and take a walk with a friend. Spend the weekend exploring new places around your college. Take the time to have some fun and relax because college can be pretty stressful.
Every Saturday you will avoid doing homework like it is the plague. When Sunday rolls around you will complain that you have way too much stuff to do and not enough time to do it.
On Saturday you want to sleep in, hang out with friends, and not look at a single book or even open your email. Most of Sunday you will do the exact same thing and then try to cram all your homework into a few short hours. Then you will whine and complain about how you do not have enough time in your life to do all this homework. But, you will never admit it is because you are a great procrastinator.
Your college experience is what you make of it.
You may not have a clue what you want to do in the future, but that is OK. College has plenty of opportunities for you to figure that out. While you figure it out, make the most out of your experience. You can choose to get involved and have a lot of fun, or you can choose not to. No matter what, just know that you control how great your college experience will be. So go out and try new things, join new clubs and meet new people. College can either be the best four years of your life or the worst.
