It’s been about two months since I packed up my life into a couple of suitcases and moved from Miami, Florida to Wellesley, Massachusetts. Since arriving at Babson, I have quickly learned a couple of very important life lessons.
1. The Freshman 15 is no joke
Papers due tomorrow = stress and some tears = binge eating and convincing yourself you need a sugar high to get through the night. College is a constant battle with time. Which leaves eating healthy and exercising low on my list of priorities when I have 149 things to do before a reasonable hour in order to sleep at least 5 hours and not be dead the next day.
Also, the fact that there’s always ice cream available at the dining hall doesn’t help. The way I reassure myself when I eat way too much is by remembering that I am growing and need food *cough cough*.
2. Old BS doesn’t work anymore
In high school, I could always study the night before, or do a paper last minute and still manage to get a good grade. Sometimes I wouldn’t even have to study at all. In college, if you don’t study you face the traumatic death of your soul during the exam. You will battle with feelings of regret and self-loathing while you wonder how bad a 0 is going to affect your grade. Old habits don’t work after high school, a lesson I learned while taking (and bombing) my Accounting midterm.
3. Making new friends is hard
Looking back, I see that I took a lot of my friends back home for granted. Having people you could always talk to, do things with, and spring last minute plans doesn’t just happen. It takes time to grow relationships like that with others and you don’t always just become automatic best friends with the people around you.
I didn’t really think about the fact that I would be moving to a completely different state, where I didn’t know anyone. I realize that it’s kind of difficult to make the transition from constant hello’s in the hallway to sending ugly double chin pictures on Snapchat. The biggest takeway I can offer is be patient. Although it might be frustrating to not click with people as soon as you step foot on campus, realize that friendships take time.
4. The work isn’t as hard as I thought, but it isn’t easy either
One of the things I was terrified about when I came to college was the workload, I thought I would be the typical college student staying up until 3 AM doing work. And although I do stay up that late, I find that it is mostly due to my lack of time management skills instead of the actual level of difficulty of the workload.
5. It’s easier to like school in college than it was in high school
8 hours a day taking subjects that will have no importance later and doing constant busy work is very different than going to class a couple of times a week with Professors who make it interesting to learn about subjects that will actually be relevant to my career.
6. What is time?
One minute it’s 2 PM and you have all the time in the world to write that paper, then suddenly it’s 12 AM and you only have 1 page out of the 8 that are due tomorrow.
7. There’s always a constant pressure to go out, but sometimes staying in with Netflix is just as great
At the beginning of the semester, if I was in my dorm alone at 10 PM on a Thursday night I would start wondering if I was being antisocial ASF and consider going out. Or if it was a Saturday and I was doing homework and got invited to go out I would go because I felt that I would be missing out if I didn’t. Although this still happens, I have realized that staying in sometimes is perfectly okay. Don’t be afraid to say no. This is the only time in my life when I can go party until 3AM with a minimal amount of responsibilities, but if I want to stay in and read while everyone else goes wild that’s fine too. Fun isn’t only going to those frat parties, it can also be enjoying having the dorm to yourself while you click on the “are you still watching?” button more than you can count.
8. Living on my own is great, but living 1,258 miles away from home isn’t
I can go out whenever I want without, decide to buy a plane ticket right now, and go to sleep at 5 AM, without my mom telling me I’m going to die early because of lost brain cells. Yes, living on my own is great. But, having to Facetime my family to sing happy birthday to my brother because I’m not physically there kind of sucks.