My first year at UCLA was one of the worst years of my life. At one point, I was convinced that my entire life was over. Whenever people told me that the transition from high school to college is a rough one, I never really believed them, that is, until I started my first quarter at UCLA.
I started the fall quarter at UCLA with high expectations. The dream life I had imagined for myself, which would have been my high school experience, remained a dream. So, going to a new city with over a thousand new faces seemed like the perfect do-over to finally achieve the dream life I had always imagined. If I could go back and tell first-year Jesille to lower her expectations and to come down to earth, I would. However, since I can’t, I shall tell any other first years who are finding their first year at college to be rougher than they expected.
Growing up, I always had a high imagination, which I can mainly blame on all of the young adult and coming-of-age books, TV shows, and movies I watched as a child. This strongly influenced my expectations for how my first year of college would go. I didn’t have lots of friends in high school: I was known as the quite shy girl and never really got invited to parties or events. I would always go on Instagram with envy, seeing everyone live out the high school experience that I wanted.
Then I heard that college is where you can rebrand yourself. No one knows you or your past, so you get to start over. I also heard how your first year of college is the best year of your life and how if you don’t check everything off of this vague and made-up checklist, then you’re entire college career is done for, and there’s no going back. Of course, this planted an idea in my head that I was going to break out of my shell with no problem. I would find my perfect friend group, I was going to join all of these clubs, I was going to go out more, and I was going to be a straight-A engineering student somehow. I was going to finally live out my own stereotypical coming-of-age teen movie. However, through my excitement, I forgot you can’t change your entire personality overnight.
I was a nervous wreck the entire year. I felt like I was reverting to my middle school self, where I was shy and never went out. My dorm at the time overlooked Bruin walk, so whenever party days would roll around, I would stare out of my window watching everyone with their big friend group laughing as they head out for their adventure for the night. I was having a hard time finding my dream friend groups while juggling my engineering workload. My depression was beginning to hit a new low, mixing in being homesick as well. It was terrible. I wanted to transfer out of UCLA because I didn’t have a good support system away from home and didn’t have anyone to lean on.
I would look at people’s Instagrams and TikTok posts with so much envy because my first year of college was nothing like their first year. I was convinced something was wrong with me. Growing up, I had a hard time fitting in with the rest of the crowd, and those false narratives were starting to show up once again. I was convinced that, because I was having a hard time finding my crew of people, I was going to be a loner for the rest of my years at college, even questioning if I made the right decision on committing to UCLA.
If you’re going through your first year of college, what I experience might be your current reality, and I’m here to tell you that it’s going to be okay. The picture-perfect first year of college that people try to paint all the time is not going to be everyone’s reality, but that doesn’t mean that you somehow are screwed for the next four years. It just means you hit a bump in the road, but that doesn’t mean the journey isn’t over yet.
Now that I’m a second year, I can gladly say that the first year of college experience is overrated and overhyped. I have found that this year is going significantly better than last year. While it’s still not exactly what I expected my college experience to be, it’s better than being stuck in the pit that I was in last year. I could’ve easily fallen into the thought process that I have missed my chances of making friends and now my dream college experience will never happen, but I was determined to do things differently this year. This year, while I still haven’t found “my perfect friend group”, I did find people whom I can call friends.
It took me a while to get out of my shell, but I did it. I decided to participate in Panhellenic sorority rush, join engineering clubs within my field, and be less afraid to talk to people. It was not an overnight change, it took me a year to find comfort within myself to get out of my comfort zone. Don’t get me wrong, I still haven’t fully nailed the entire college experience and still think that there’s so much that I can improve to make my dream a reality, but just because my first year of college didn’t go swimmingly doesn’t mean that suddenly my second year is doomed to fail. I proved to myself that things are still possible with a fresh start and past experiences behind me, so I can learn from them.
To anyone out there who is finding their first year to be a struggle, understand that you are going through an interesting point in time where you are doing an incredibly massive transition. Please be kind to yourself since this transition is always the main reason why you’re experience might not exactly be what you expected. That’s okay, it’s out of your control, and only time can help the transition. Even if you’re not in your first year of college, it’s still doesn’t mean it’s too late to turn things around.
You’re already in college to make your academic and career goals a reality. Just like how it took time to reach this stage in life, it’ll only take a little bit more time to dreams of making that main character energy more than just a dream.