I recently came back home after my first year away at school and I think there is a lot of things that have been running through my head the entire year, but also a lot more lately as the school year came to a close. College is hard. It really does teach you a lot. Most apparent in the first year, more than what you are learning in your classes it teaches you about yourself. I would not say I had a great first year, nor would I really say I had a poor one. I started writing this to put down some tips, but as I continue to write it looks to be turning into something more of a ramble.
Okay. College is hard, and I made it harder.
The first semester was an adjustment. I was used to being a straight A student without really any effort, and while I knew I would not be able to do that while at a university, I didn’t really step up my game hard enough. I ended up with about half my final grades being a B+ and the other half A-. I thought I made out fairly well, and wasn’t too stressed about it until I saw what that did to my GPA. Never having received a Bs on my transcript before I didn’t realize the impact they actually do have on your transcript. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do at this point or if I was going to go to try to go to grad school after I graduated or transfer to another college sometime in my undergrad, so this all really freaked me out. And I think I kind of spiraled from there.
I felt lost. While this seems over dramatic because I know people have worse semesters, I wasn’t even taking any hard classes at this point and my GPA was getting too close to my academic scholarship cutoff for comfort.
I had entered my freshman year as an intended-public relations major. Intended because I would have to apply to get into the Journalism school at a later date. I thought an ABJ was what I wanted, but I really knew from the beginning it was me feeling scared of what I really wanted to do. It wasn’t what I wanted and this contributed to me feeling lost and unmotivated in my classwork.
One good thing that was occurring for me first semester was that I was being very social, I would talk to anyone and I wasn’t finding that hard to do, I would go out and go to parties and have a great time. I met lots of people and when people asked me to go out with them I wanted to.
I’m not realizing until now, as I write this that when I got back my final grades from that semester is when the switch in me happened. I was meeting all these people, but very few of them I was actually interested in being around to just hang out or have a conversation with. I felt really alone where I was because I didn’t know anyone in any sort of depth. And melodramatic as I am, I felt like I was failing at school on top of that.
I was at home for winter break for 3 weeks, and at the end of it I did not want to go back to school at all. I was seriously considering transferring schools I felt I had made a huge mistake, I felt and sometimes very much continue to feel like I all the things I had wanted in a school, were not the things I needed in one.
So I went back, and started my classes still on track for an ABJ and graduating early at that. I started looking at schools to transfer to. I was in such a debate with myself as to whether or not to transfer that I broke out in stress hives.
And then I remembered what I really wanted to do, what I’ve always wanted to do.
I am currently a bio major, and while I don’t know exactly where that’s going to take me yet I have a few ideas. I feel less lost and it motivated me much more in my school work. Even though the classes i was taking had nothing to do with my desired major yet, I knew I had to do well, I now had a goal I felt I needed to reach.
Everything is still far from perfect, this change in majors puts me nearly a year behind and I still think about transferring and I still have meltdowns asking myself “WTF am I doing?”, one of which even resulted in me becoming a geography major for about three weeks. In the midst of my inner turmoil throughout the second semester, I found it really hard to go out and meet new people, I had a desire to be close to people, but none what-so-ever to socialize. Leaving me still feeling very very alone much of the time.
Luckily, I was introduced to a few very lovely people that understood where my focus was and did not make me feel bad for that, mostly because they were right there with me.
I felt a lot of pain and anxiety during this past school year. But I also have done a lot of self-reflection that I think is guiding me to where I need to be. I recognize what I need to work on. I’m terrified and excited for the next three to four years (fingers crossed it’s three). I’m terrified I’ll continue to get in my own way and prevent myself from achieving and doing all that I want to do. However, I’m excited to see where my studies will take me and the friendships I will forge along the way.
I’m sure no-one will read this, but it was a cathartic write
