If you’re looking for advice, I’d say there’s a lot hidden in my experiences (and writing, obviously) that I always love sharing. Some of these are from classes, people, and just my life in general. I always find it so amazing how much people can change in such a short time, but I never expected it could happen to me until it did. Learning something new is always a great thing, and as a freshman, I feel I’ve learned more than I could have ever imagined. I hope incoming freshmen, students, or literally anyone else can benefit from what I’ve learned! So… here are ten things I’ve learned as a freshman at the University of Connecticut.
Never settle for less than what you want and deserve
I’m talking about relationships, friends, situations, and life. For relationships, I’ve always settled for the person who fits me enough at that moment. It’s like how you can fit a square into the shape of a circle if it’s the right size, even if it isn’t the right shape. I’ve gotten to experience someone with whom I fit well, but I know it’s not what I want in the long run. I learned there are people out there whom I am fully attracted to every aspect of them, but they don’t always reciprocate this feeling, so I move on. It’s very unfortunate, but I’d rather not have wasted time with the wrong person when I could have been looking for the right person all along.
Sorry for the people who this is about, but my ex from high school was just a situation where I did really like him, it just wasn’t right for me. This was for many reasons, but ultimately ending the relationship when I did allowed me to explore who I was and what I really wanted for myself during the transition into college. I met this one guy through friends, and I started talking to him. It went amazingly, and we fit so well, but there were a few little things that I realized I couldn’t just brush past. Then, when I found someone else, I fully understood what I truly wanted and needed for myself. This other guy was not at all what I needed, but it showed me that I needed more than what both of them were willing to give me. I am so glad that even though it didn’t work out with the second guy, I got the chance to reflect on my situation(s) and realize what I want and deserve in a relationship.
Set your standards based on what you want and deserve, but don’t expect everyone to meet them from the get-go. I’ve had to take time for myself —away from whatever I’m involved in to find myself and organize my feelings— to learn that someone or something isn’t for me. I still haven’t found my person yet, but I don’t need to, and settling for something “pretty good” would just delay it.
You are so powerful in your own life and experiences.
I watched a video in my psychology class about how, in experiments to test the effectiveness of antidepressant medication, those who take the placebo (fake medication) have just as great an improvement from the “medication” as those who actually take the antidepressant. Now, don’t take this the wrong way. Antidepressants work, and people are not faking getting better. It’s about the ability of someone’s brain to convince itself that something works, with so much power that it literally makes you better. If it justifies the validity of the medication, the results were only shown to have little difference between the placebo and experimental group when it came to mild—not severe—depression.
Less educated talk. You shape your own perception of life, and that’s what you live and experience. Experience is the perception of your environment and senses.
Performance in classes depend on so much more than your effort.
Ratemyprofessor.com is the best resource available for students who are choosing their classes. Your academics depend on the professor; they rarely depend on the course itself. Attendance is not always mandatory, but going to class is always helpful. One thing I’ve learned: if professors post their lectures and in class you realize only the slides are helpful/necessary to know, you don’t need to go to class. Attendance doesn’t always equal effort.
Grading is a topic I can go on and on about, but the summary is: choosing the right professor is still the leading determiner of grades and performance in a class, because the amount of extra credit they give out is a crucial factor. Your major has a lot to do with the difficulty of classes, but don’t let that discourage you! Effort is still a major performance factor, but it’s just not the only factor.
I can’t handle Connecticut weather for the rest of my life.
I hate the wind. On campus, as I’m walking to class, I get so upset with the wind. Non-stop. During the spring semester, the cold and the wind messed me up. My hands and face get frozen as I’m crawling my way through the wind to my class. Not sure if it’s just me, but my face gets very red when it’s cold out. It’s so embarrassing because when I walk into a building, it gets even redder until I warm up. I am not built for the cold, and having to walk to my classes outside has shown me my fate. I’ve lived in Connecticut my whole life, and that’s going to change once I graduate.
I’m outgoing.
All throughout high school, I was always quiet unless I was with friends. I grew up in a small town with a small class, and everyone knew everyone. It sucked. Personally, I didn’t talk because I didn’t like anyone, but I know people would be made fun of for whatever if they weren’t in the “main group”. College has shown me that it was the environment that affected how I was acting; it wasn’t actually my personality.
It’s very cliché to say you can reinvent yourself in college, but in a way, it’s correct. Not yourself, per se, but definitely how you present yourself. Fresh environment, new people, confidence, and understanding that people will accept you for who you are is the best combination.
There are so many options out there.
Focusing on relationships, I never knew how much someone could fit me as a whole until I got to college. Not saying I found my person because I definitely did not, but I realized there will be someone better out there. I’m the type of person who sticks with what I like—and think I love—, so I would never explore other options. NGL, I was talking about food mainly, but it relates to my whole life. There are so many people on this campus, and meeting so many people made me realize I was living in my own bubble.
Specifically, I started talking to someone in college and thought that they fit me so well. There were some things I didn’t like; habits, attitudes, quirks that I didn’t enjoy, but you won’t ever find someone who’s “perfect” for you. The thing is, there was no real spark. Just acceptance that they fit me well enough until I realized I needed more. Nothing against this person, but I explored more options after—and was let down a couple times—, and I realized there were more people out there. I just needed to accept it.
Living off campus is not as bad as it seems.
Commuting my freshman year was not on the dream board. Why would it ever be? Honestly, I never even wanted to stay in Connecticut, but unfortunately, college is expensive. That’s also why I was forced to live off campus. The expectation of isolation and sadness was not lived up to. THANK GOD. I am as involved on campus as I want to be, and UConn is amazing at allowing this to be possible. I made friends easily, I go to events, and I even sleepover some weekends! It’s not ideal, but the situation is what you make it to be.
If anyone reading this is living off-campus their freshman year (or at all), and is worried about what it will be like, I wrote another article on my experience as a freshman commuter. Go read here:
Having a routine is necessary for happiness and success.
This is targeted to my own happiness and success, so please don’t think you need a routine to achieve both of these! For me, I have a whole morning routine. It’s my favorite part of the day because I can always rely on my mornings to go well and as expected. At least for me, I forget to do a lot of things if I don’t have a routine check of what there is to do during the day. It’s easy to forget about assignments. Very easy. I check HuskyCT every day to see if there are any assignments due that day or later in the week that I can get done when I have time, then I look at each class specifically to see if there are any hidden assignments. Discussion posts and textbook readings are what I mean by “hidden”.
You still have so much to learn about the world and yourself.
I was told by my sister-in-law that I have so much to learn about relationships. I didn’t believe her and told her I knew what I wanted. That was true. I just didn’t know what I would want later on.
My dream careers in order from age: cowgirl, astronaut, teacher, actress, nurse, mechanic, flight attendant, psychologist, clinical psychologist, loadmaster, and neuropsychologist. What makes you think the career you want now is the one you’re going to end up doing or wanting to do later in life? There are so many options and so many things to learn about yourself and what you want. The decisions and statements you make now (or made previously) do not determine who you are in the future—unless you want them to.
Ever heard people say, “Don’t marry until you’re in your 30s. You’re going to regret it.” You think you know it all at the time because of what you don’t know. Isn’t that a nuance? It’s true, though. Think of a time recently when this applied to you. I bet it isn’t hard to think of one. But that’s just life! You’re still learning how to navigate everything, and that’s normal. What shouldn’t be normal is believing you know a lot. We only experience a little part of the world, and all of it is not just the experience that we capture, but also our perception of it.
Don’t fret. You will learn as much as you need to know to get by and be happy. Not knowing some things is better anyway. If possible, make decisions based on what you think is best for your future and what you may want. Don’t get disappointed if you make the wrong decision, though. You didn’t know.
Choose yourself even when it feels like it’s not an option.
You are your whole life. You are the only one who can always choose yourself. You can always choose what’s best for you. Never let anyone or anything make you feel differently. College is difficult to navigate, especially at this age. You’re an adult, but you can’t do a lot of things still; most of us are not fully independent yet. It may feel like you have to choose between certain things, but as I like to remind people, there’s always a middle ground. You are more important than your grades, how people perceive you, and your decisions. It may feel like you have to sacrifice your wellbeing or time spent with friends for school and grades, but that extreme is artificial. Choose yourself. There’s always a way to balance a situation, and there’s always a way to do what’s best for you. If needed, skipping assignments or seeing friends is always an option. If you miss one assignment, life goes on. If you don’t hangout with your friends even though you feel left out, life goes on.
Relationships in college always make it difficult to find who you are as a person. That new sense of independence needs to be built around structure in yourself and who you are, and getting into a relationship early on impedes this necessary stage. Everyone knows the whole thing about not getting into a relationship freshman year, but it’s for a good reason. You can’t find yourself if you’ve found someone else. That sounds bad, but let me try to explain it in a way that might make more sense. If you have never had to be independent and are finally given the opportunity to find yourself without being dependent on someone, you should not immediately rush into a relationship where you’re dependent on another person. That’s the opposite of what being independent is. As you adjust, it’s easier to find yourself and what you actually want in life, and eventually, you can coexist with a partner. Healthy relationships are only able to be healthy if both parties are confident in themselves and know who they are. In doing this, you are choosing yourself.
If you haven’t already thought about what you have learned this year, please do! I find it helpful to journal when I am stuck or just need to get my feelings out. This makes it easier to reflect on my feelings and how I’ve resolved them as they occur. Although I haven’t had time to journal, I still take time at the end of my day to remember the good and bad parts of my day and how I feel overall. I am just a freshman, so take what I say with a grain of salt. Like I mentioned before, I still have so much to learn.