I think it's interesting how people presume they know everything. As I look at incoming freshmen, I can't help but shake my head. I know I was the exact same: I thought I knew it all. I honestly couldn't have been more wrong. There's so much more...all right, here I go, breaking my own rule. But it's necessary. Anyway, there's so much more to college than people, especially incoming freshmen, realize.
I guess you could think I'm jaded. The allure of college has worn off. It's not all butterflies and daisies and roses.
This is what incoming freshmen think college is:
Strolling around the quad through golden leaves, a slightly heavy backpack on your back, surrounded by your 38283938 new best friends that you met on Facebook. You go back to your dorm room where you hang out with your roommate--you went in blind, but you're going to be each other's maid of honor after graduation, you just know it! Classes happen, but there's so much more to college that you don't even really think about it too much. You party on the weekend because that's what college kids do. Cafeteria food is actually really good and good for you. All those horror stories that current college kids told you: bull. College is actually heaven on earth. They just did something wrong, you're sure of that. Nothing could ever be better than college.
This is what current college students know college is:
Powerwalking through the quad because it's 3 degrees outside and there's a 40 mph wind from the north pelting snow in your face. Your backpack may be heavy, but you're too numb to know. You arrive back at the cinderblock building you call home and find out your roommate from hell is still in bed, because (s)he takes two classes, and (s)he doesn't ever get up before noon, never mind the fact that you got up at 6:50 to make it to your 7:00 Organic Chemistry lab, because you're still pre-med, even though half of the other people who came into college pre-med have since changed their major to physical education. You go to the cafeteria and try to pick through the undercooked, over greasy, over fatted but still tasteless food to attempt to find something that might contain a vitamin or two. Then you go back to your room and get all of your books because your roommate is STILL asleep. You haul all of your things across the entire campus in the same 3 degree weather, get to the library, fire up your laptop, and out of habit get on Facebook, the only place where you actually have friends. You end up spending three hours on Facebook and get no homework done, which means you'll be up until 2 AM again finishing that orgo homework. And then you'll start all over again tomorrow.
I just wish I could scream at every single incoming college freshman: COLLEGE IS NOT PERFECT! ANYTHING WRONG WITH YOUR LIFE IN HIGH SCHOOL IS NOT GOING TO FIX ITSELF BECAUSE YOU MOVE AWAY FROM HOME.
College Class of 2013:
It's not your parents.
It's not your friends at home.
It's not your high school.
It's not your hometown.
It's not your boyfriend.
IT'S YOU.
YOU are the one responsible for your dissatisfaction in life. You're going to learn this the hard way when you run away to college and find that you're still just as unhappy as you were beforehand, except now you're homesick and overwhelmed and scared about the future even more than you were senior year, too. So until you figure out whatever it is about yourself that's making you miserable, you're not going to be any happier at college than you were at home.
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