As summer break is coming to an end, many of us have begun preparing for the upcoming school year. Excitement fills our bodies as we think of returning to our friends from school and seeing their smiling faces. But, more so than that, dread takes over. Has summer really flown by already? This can’t be real.

Now, as college freshmen, this is a super exciting time for you. You’re moving into a dorm (most likely) and in the next few weeks you will begin making a lot of new friends. You’ll learn a lot about the college that you’re attending: the best/worst dorm, best teachers, awful teachers, best cafeteria food, worst cafeteria and the cool hangout spots. Freshman year can be really scary, but it also can be really fun. Pledging fraternities/sororities seems really enticing, and the party scene is really fun to get involved in, but don’t forget, grades come first (you’re welcome, parents).

But for those of us returning to school (like me, in my senior year), we seriously are just ready to be done. We know what’s going on at school and who we do or don’t want to see, or hear from. We’ve got a checklist of classes that we’ve got left, and then we can finally graduate and move on with our lives. We dread the one class with that one teacher that everybody hates, but we’ve got to have the class to graduate. At this point we are dragging. It feels like college is taking forever and we’re just ready to move onto the next chapter of our lives. But it’s only August. Not next May.

Going to college is an amazing experience. The people that I’ve met throughout my college experience are awesome, and I can most definitely see a lot of them being friends for life. It’s really nice when you start making friends with people as you grow up, because you have a lot in common, like you’re all going to be teachers (that’s my case). I love being able to discuss my future with people who have goals like mine. It’s really comforting. It’s also really comforting to know that other people who have the same major are most likely having problems with the same classes, or same teachers, or are stressing about the same stuff as I am.

But, back to how I feel at this present moment on August 5^th. I feel like I am paying a lot of money to be stressed 24/7. I feel overwhelmed and school hasn’t even started yet. I am already dreading the amount of time I will be spending on homework and the hours of sleep that I will be missing out on. I don’t even want to think about my schedule whenever school starts, balancing school and work is never fun. Although school can be really fun sometimes (like lunch and breaks in between classes spent with friends), I am altogether not looking forward to August 22.

So here’s to the next two weeks that we have left of summer, before we are sucked back into the swing of school things. I wish you all the best of luck, and when school starts and it sucks, I promise I feel the exact same way as you do.