Many of us, when we begin university, are carrying a lot.
The grief (and sometimes guilt) of leaving our families. The fear of being in a new place with unfamiliar faces. The shaky feeling of having to start all over again, wipe the slate clean, and make new friends. The joy that comes with being able to reinvent yourself. The uncertainty of our futures. The questions of success, of failure, and of motivation. The knowledge that the next four years will ultimately make us, or break us.
One piece of baggage we hold near and dear to our hearts is our patterns from high school. This is something that, oftentimes, we refuse to let go of. We still want that massive friend group. We yearn for less responsibility. We still feel self-conscious, still think everyone is looking at us.
As I come to the end of my sophomore year, one of my favorite things to tell people, mostly my younger sister, is, “College has really made me care less.” And it’s true.
When I first arrived at CU, I must’ve looked like a turtle committed to spending life with its head inside its shell — lost, unmotivated, and carrying a load all my own. I had just left my family, who were still living outside of the U.S., and while I was at a university I had been to many times, I still felt out of place. Most of all, as almost everyone does, I felt like people were staring at and judging me.
A few semesters later, my theory that I was the center of everyone’s universe has fallen through.
College forced me to take a hard look at the way I felt others were evaluating me. What I mean by this is that, when I saw people looking at me, I thought that they were thinking the worst of me. I used to make up all sorts of scenarios of judgment in my mind — they thought I looked tired, my hair was unruly, or that I was wearing the wrong outfit. I was completely making the people that I walked by into demons without them ever actually saying anything mean or scrutinizing to me. Take it from me, don’t expect that people are seeing the worst in you if they never explicitly made it clear.
Being at university has made me more confident in spending time with myself. Grocery trip with a podcast? Yes please! Biking to my favorite coffee shop to do homework alone on a Sunday? Sign me up. Skipping that party to stay home and curl up with my stuffed animals and a movie? I’ll take that luxury any day. I’ve always been someone who struggles with being and feeling alone, but college accelerated my growth in that area significantly. If you had told a version of me from high school that I actually enjoy spending time with just myself, I think she might’ve thrown up.
I think most of us can relate to this next one — college has made me far more independent. I’m not afraid to make a phone call or handle a situation by myself. Sure, I still rely heavily on my family for support and guidance when things are significantly more challenging, but I’ve learned that I am capable of dealing with anything that comes my way. And every hard, taxing situation that I’m put through just reaffirms that I can do most anything, and do it well.
College has improved my sense of style. No, no, I don’t mean that I copy every other girl I see. What I mean is that when I started wearing clothing that I actually liked, people noticed my personal sense of style, and appreciated it. Leaning into what I prefer to wear has allowed me to be a lot more confident and give a lot less f*cks. You don’t like what I’m wearing? That’s great for you! I’m wearing it because I like it, not because I woke up thinking: how can I please everyone today?
In tandem with this, college allowed me to distinguish between opinions. Yes, you may be thinking I’m a hypocrite for still caring what others think of me, but it’s important to define who the others are. I realized that specific people in my life hold a lot of weight and importance, and I want to pay attention to what they think and expect of me. The opinions of my parents will always and forever matter to me (they’re my best friends, after all), but the opinion of a stranger I meet at a party doesn’t hold any meaning or matter in the long run. Making space for and carefully considering the opinions of those I love has taken a lot of pressure off of my actions, and let me determine what actually fuels me each day.
University has molded me into a completely different version of myself than who I was in high school. You might be saying, “Yeah Amanda, that’s kind of the point of college?” Yes, I recognize that. But college has truly been a wonderfully transformative experience, crafting me day by day to believe in myself and my life path. I am very proud of the growth I’ve achieved, and I’m excited, optimistic, and curious for the next four semesters.