If you're anything like me, you spent your senior year of high school watching episodes of A Different World in between the time you were stressing over college entrance exams, working a minimum-wage job, participating in extracurriculars, and scrambling to put together a billion college applications.

For the high school senior, college is a reverie of unknowingly disproportionate idealisms centered on liberation, love, and college festivities. However, the first semester of college can be a rude awakening to the reality that adulting is hard, yet necessary, but still hard. With the freedom of the collegiate experience, comes more responsibility and more pressure to set course for the future.

As both a Black man and an incoming college freshman, A Different World became my eyes for what I thought my first semester of college would be, but things went a little differently...

If you're not already familiar with the highly popularized television series, A Different World is a sitcom produced by Debbie Allen that explored the lives of a group of friends attending a prestigious HBCU called Hillman College. The show, which aired from 1987 to 1993, also tackled controversial issues such as institutionalized racism, America's views on AIDS/HIV, sexual assault, abusive relationships, police brutality, the lack of representation for Black students in STEM, politics, and many more.

A Different World resulted in an increase of Black students that would attend college, all the while featuring celebrities such as Halle Berry, Blair Underwood, Whoopi Goldberg, Sinbad, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Tupac, Diahann Carroll, Patti LaBelle, Jesse Jackson, Lena Horne, and many more.

So here's a rundown of how my story is in some ways similar, yet totally different than the show I stayed up countless nights relishing with my older brother:

College academics are a lot different than high school. You have to be able to modify your way of thinking since you will be challenged to operate in a different mindset than you did in high school. Also, don't make the mistake of thinking that AP classes will make you an expert in the class. Often, students develop poor habits in high school that have to be broken in order to excel in the college classroom.

Financially, Whitley Gilbert almost never broke a sweat; however, the reality is that having money in college may be the most difficult time of your life. I somehow ended up working three jobs my first semester (perhaps not the wisest choice), which didn't give me a lot of time to sleep and work on self-care. The financial struggle becomes even more of an issue if you are like me, someone who is an out-of-state student that goes to college in/near a major city. Additionally, the romance in A Different World seemed perfect and effortless, but college romances can often time start off as awkward and ephemeral. Who knows? You may find yourself like Dwayne at the altar of your future wife from college. But chances are, it may be a while before you find "the one."

A Different World focuses almost entirely on the lives of African-American students. Yet, Blackness in the college environment shows us that Blackness cannot be relegated to any monolithic, entrapping definition as many Black students of all shades and sizes come from many places along the African Diaspora, carrying many stories. My college experience has allowed me to feel comfortable embracing my identity as a young Black male who is Trinidadian and African-American, speaks Spanish and Portuguese, and enjoys 80's/90's R&B. As a student attending a college with few Black students, it can be difficult to feel as though you are keeping who you are intact. Thankfully, my first semester has allowed me to meet people from all over the world and to appreciate the sense of community and history that comes with being Black and unabashedly so. Not to say that all students will feel this way in college, but it's something I've come to appreciate.

Lastly, the characters in A Different World often find themselves in exciting and outrageous moments. College will definitely leave you with some interesting memories, but maybe not anything as extravagant as a performance with Gladys Knight, running a television charity show, or stealing the love of your life from the biggest wedding of the century.

Needless to say, A Different World is a must-see sitcom and is one of my favorite shows to ever hit television. I encourage all students current and former to take a look at a show with so much to offer. With everything from the life lessons to the joy of seeing Black students thrive in college, A Different World taught me what it means to pursue my dreams and how important it is to be true to who you are, lessons that are vital to the college experience. Also, the show remains greatly relevant as many of the issues that the group faced such as racism and inequality are themes that our country continues to face. And though I may never meet Dwayne and Whitley or take a class with Colonel Taylor, Hillman College will always be in my heart.