Seonna Gittens
I and many others imagined freshman year as a time of complete bliss. It was an opportunity for me to mold myself into the individual I wanted to become. I thought college would be the time for awesome friends, crazy, never-ending parties and The Lizzie McGuire Movie study abroad/love experience. In reality, the first year is a time for personal and academic stress, finding your true friends and establishing a social niche.
The College of Wooster promises students a prestigious education leading to a great career or graduate education, and coming from high school, many of us did not know what this undergraduate education entailed.
Your two hours of homework a night and balancing six extracurricular activities in high school now becomes eight to 12 hours of homework and maybe a sport and/or extracurricular in college. You may feel that it is impossible, but it is not. Most of the students on campus are extremely involved and have the same amount of course work you have. The College did not accept us in order for us to endure this academic struggle alone; therefore, continue to persevere because you are not the only one. You can do it, and don’t let anyone or anything discourage you.
As a freshman you probably have the deep-seated nostalgia about the summer before college. This is the summer you spent counting down the last few days with your best friends — almost to the extent it was cinematic — but now you are in school. Your friends from home are unlikely to have anything in common with you anymore. Life advice: friendships are meant to evolve. In college, you meet people who will share new experiences with you, who can understand you to a degree no one from home could or can. These are the friends you meet in early adulthood that can sympathize with you because you are all sharing the same experiences. It’s nice to know that Johnny or Susie from grade school witnessed your first kiss or you losing your first tooth, but what about your first night with tequila? What about your first nervous breakdown during finals? Those are the friends that count.
This is your moment to not fear change, but embrace it. Let your College of Wooster experience shape you. The first year of college is the most confusing and the scariest time of your life, but college is also the experience that you make it.