Starting College!

Phew. You wouldn’t think becoming orientated would make you so disorientated. I’ve just been through about 8 days straight of pre-orientation followed by orientation, and all I can say is, I’m glad I can finally start classes and have a less hectic schedule! Still, it was a lot of fun channeling freshman energy into meeting new people and exploring places on campus.

Thankfully, the first day of classes gave me a spot of time to take a deep breath and think about the first few days of my college experience. To be fair, the freedom is glorious. Living alone was something I didn’t think I would be good at, but I’ve been holding it together. As an introvert, making friends seemed like a daunting task, but the majority of the people I’ve met have been kind and extremely interesting, coming from all different backgrounds and places.

To sum it all up, here are my top reactions to my college experience so far:

1. Hallelujah. Freedom.
2. Doing my laundry was surprisingly easy.
3. On the other hand, I’m really running out of socks.
4. Where are my Nike shoes? My favorite pair of jeans?? God, I should’ve packed neater.
5. I am SO exhausted from waking up early and getting to sleep late because of all these activities with free food. (And sadly mandatory floor meetings.)
6. The people here are SO smart and SO interesting in a way that I never expected.
7. Textbooks are stressful. They’re insanely expensive and take quite a bit of digging/research to find them for a good price. At the same time, it’s nice to get (at least some of) them early so you don’t have to worry about getting 20 books at once.
8. If you take a while to find your niche of friends, there’s nothing wrong with you or the people around you. It might seem like it’ll take a long time when you’re lost in a crowd, but you’ll connect with people faster than you think.
9. You’ll probably have less down time alone in your room than you expect, just because you’ll want to be out and about exploring campus or participating in activities, especially in the first couple of days. I haven’t really been on the internet in a week, which is quite different from what I’ve been doing all summer.
10. You’ll start to realize that things that are part of your identity that you may have never even considered as “different” will be pointed out. As a Texan, for me it was saying “y’all” too much. (Seriously though, it’s such a convenient contraction.) Embrace it.

I’m already lovin’ the college life and I can’t wait for the long line of experiences ahead of me.