With just a little more than a month left in my first semester of college, I'm at a point that calls for reflection over the things that I've learned during the four months I've been at the University of Oklahoma.
Looking back at where I was around this time last year, I definitely would not have imagined myself where I am right now. I grew up with a desire to learn and lived for the aesthetic created by the neat column of A's on a report card, but I knew that it was one thing to be considered smart in high school, and something else entirely to be admitted into college and be able to thrive there. Despite the doubt, I held in regards to my self-efficacy skills, I knew that a college education would be detrimental to the progress I would make in my life.
In preparation for the college application process, I spent my high school years dividing my time between clubs that would give me leadership experience and trying to rack up enough points in AP courses that would bolster my GPA. Overall, I was academically successful; even when I felt like I was drowning in physics and crying as I finished my first big research paper the period before it was due (sorry Mrs. St. John), I managed to consistently crank out work that earned A's. Teachers and my parents' friends assured me that I was on track to continue my upward trajectory at a university and while it was reassuring to hear I wasn't so sure.
Fast-forward from the high I was riding December of last year when I received my letter of acceptance, to October of this year when I had two research papers due within a day of each other, I had bombed my first quiz, and was living off of an average of four hours of sleep each night, everything was hitting the fan. It felt like my self-doubts were warranted all along like I just didn't have anything in my head that my professors were probing my mind for. I felt like I had failed on the grandest scale; the stakes were raised, I had done all of the work to be there, I had made it halfway and I fumbled. I was so hard on myself for letting down my parents, scholarship donors, and anyone else I could think of, that I didn't even stop to consider the reality of the situation. What I didn't realize at the time was that the only person I had let down was myself and that I didn't do by blowing a quiz or even putting off papers; I was torturing myself with the idea that college leaves no room for imperfection.
Skip ahead about another month and I've come to fully understand my mistake now—and for those of you who were wondering; I wrote two bomb papers within 36 hours and my grades are fine but I still run on about four hours of sleep.
My first semester of college has taught me that although it is a time for students to grow exponentially, that process is not flawless. I have been challenged and I have met every one of them, maybe not with the results I would have liked every time, but I am most definitely growing as both a student and young adult.
