Article by: Meghan Gogan
Everyone says that college is the best 4 years of your life. It’s a new environment, you’re living on your own, and have all adult-like responsibilities. In reality it’s some of the hardest years of your life.
When I first moved in, I had such high expectations that I would be out partying each night, having fun with friends and everything would be perfect. A couple weeks into my freshman year my expectations were crushed. School work was already piling up, friends were becoming distant, and I felt like I was all alone. I thought I was the only one feeling this way and that my personal experience of college was very negative. I soon realized that this was what college was and that it was not a bad thing.
Moving into college was a big change and everyone felt the same from it. It soon became a routine of balancing social life and school life. I knew in my head I had to do better academically than I did in high school. One reason, I am paying a lot of money to come here. Why would I waste all this money to not do good academically? Since my academic performance was very poor in high school, I wanted to prove to myself, my parents and my friends that I was better than I was back then. At the end of my freshman year I had received A’s and B’s in all my classes and my GPA was .7 points higher than it was in high school. I felt great about myself and for once in my life I was proud of what I accomplished.
Now that I am in my second year of college, my expectations for college were much lower than they were when I first moved in. Don’t get me wrong I still love college I just knew that partying was not going to be the experience I wanted. I knew I really needed to focus on myself and doing well in schoolwork. Partying and going out was not on my to do list this year and I am slowly realizing that schoolwork has become a much high priority than going out every weekend.
My advice to anyone that is a senior in high school is to not have such high expectations of college. I mean, if you want your college experience to be all partying then you can make that happen but it will not just come to you. Same with doing good in school, you have to work for it and maybe go out of your comfort zone to be able to study and get good grades. To anyone that is a freshman and is feeling alone, or not having the best time in college right now, just know that you are not alone. In my opinion everyone experiences that feeling the first couple months of college and they question if this is really what college will feel like for the 4 years you’re there. College is what you make it, what you put in is what you get out.