College is perhaps one of the most defining and influential periods of time in a person’s life. It is a time of change, development, realizations, conflict, and victory. While I am not even in the second semester of my first year, I have certainly already received a taste of what is to come.
Already, college has been different in so many different ways than anything else I have experienced in my life. From the non-academic changes like learning to live away from family, learning to do laundry and buy food, and learning how to make new friends, all the way to the academic changes and challenges, such as much more individual responsibility to turn in assignments, learning to study responsibly, and learning to balance work vs personal time. In all honesty, I still am learning how to master all of the topics mentioned above, including many more.
Several times I felt like I wanted to quit and drop out because I did not know how to react to all of these new responsibilities and changes. Other times I have felt like college is awesome and it is an amazing experience to live on my own and be who I truly am. And even though I know my life and experience at college will continuously change while I am here, I know that there will always be ups and downs, and that will be perhaps one of my biggest challenges to overcome. However, one of the best ways to learn anything is by actually going out and doing it, so I might as well give it the old college try.