As I sit here, writing to whoever may stumble across my article, I can let out a sigh of relief, and for one of the first times in my life, I can think I am so proud of where I am, and how I got here, and truly believe that thought with every inch of my being. I entered college like everyone else- anxious, excited, overwhelmed, but most importantly, just over the moon to have the amount of freedom I did.
Truth: I walked into college as blind as a bat. Having watched a sibling and a few friends go through the process, I believed their highlight reel was truly the entirety of the college experience. If I could sit down freshman year Lauren and tell her everything she needed to know to not only survive, but thrive at UNH, I would have told her this:
First and foremost, freshman year friends might not be the forever friends you’d hoped for, and that’s okay. Yes, it’s terrible to fight with friends and lose those connections, but here is the upside: sometimes the only forever friend you could have needed is the freshman year girl you went to study hours with, but hadn’t seen in a year because of the pandemic. And yet, somehow, she ended up signing a lease for the bedroom right next to yours. Sometimes it’s the girl you sit next to in class but didn’t speak to until that random ice breaker four weeks into classes, and sometimes it’s the boy who is friends with the weird neighbors who always play painfully loud music in the dead of day.
Aside from friends, grades do not define you, your character or your self-worth. Allow yourself sleep, and do not crack out on caffeine to finish an assignment for a random discovery course that will mean nothing the second the semester is over. And sometimes it’s okay to take a break from the classes you actually do need in order to graduate- the stress and sleepless nights will not be worth it. Be attentive to school, but not hyper-focused because it is a time of freedom and self-discovery, and you just might miss it with your head buried in a Shakespeare play or two.
And hey, it is OKAY to get a B in a class or two- I promise you are not a failure. Your prim and perfect high school self would have cried about it, but your junior year self is still patting herself on the back for passing Elements of Weather. Consider a “B” room for improvement in that subject.
And my final word to her: enjoy your time. Some of the best nights in college are not the ones where you’re getting dressed up and going out with friends on the weekends, it might just be the impulse trip you take to Maine at 9:00 pm on a Tuesday night or the week-long binging streak of Hulu shows you share with your roommate. The very best memories are the ones that aren’t planned, but the ones where you and everyone you love are just living in the moment.
To my freshman year self, you’ve heard it a million times, and pretty soon you too will recite the lines of every freshly graduated college student ever: college is the best four years of your life so enjoy it while you can because one day you will blink and it will all be over.