Life at College: The Adjustment
It was move in day. I was in the car with my mom and dad as we headed over to Grand Canyon University to wait in the extremely long line of students getting ready to live life at college, and who were just as scared as me. When I got there, lined up were GCU student volunteers as far as I could see. Just as I got more nervous and anxious to just get into my new dorm room, one of the volunteers came up to my window. She asked me what my name was and what hall I would be living in. She wrote my name on the windshield on our car and said it would be promising if I left my window down. As terrified as I was, I complied. We continued to inch up to my dorm building in the line that seemed never ending. Suddenly, the volunteers started to call me by name. They assured me that life on campus was going to be great. The feeling of having over 50 people yell my name in happiness and encouragement still warms my heart to this day. It turned my anxiety into relaxation, and my nervousness into joy.
When we finally got all my boxes up to my room, I finally got to meet my suitemates. My roommate I’ve known since high school, but the other 2 girls were complete strangers to her and I. We said our hellos and where are you froms and continued to unpack. After a stressful afternoon of rearranging items and figuring out where everything should go, we said good bye and gave our parents hugs as they left for home. It was just me and my roommate now, and although the welcome team made us feel more “at home”, we were still frightened of what was to come… college. We walked around for a while and saw a flyer with the title “Canyon Cool Down”. This fun water slide event would mean all the students would gather on the field and get to know one another. This intimidated me, but at the same time, I wanted to go.
That night, we got ready, grabbed our suitemates, and headed for the field. At first, I was kind of wowed at how many students were there already and how long the lines had gotten. At the entrance they handed us free t-shirts labeled “Canyon Cool Down” on them and sent us off to go have fun. We chose to wait in the longest line for the biggest slide. As we waited, 10 minutes turned into 15 which turned into 20 and I wondered if it was even worth the wait anymore. As we were deciding on whether to get into a shorter line for a smaller slide, a girl came up to us. Her name was Jeana. She said her friends didn’t want to go on the slide and she didn’t want to wait in line alone. So, that was our answer. We waited in line with her as we all talked about ourselves and got to know one another. It turned out she was in the same hall as we were. We had made our first friend.
What surprised me was how courageous she was in walking up to a group of people whom she didn’t even know. Her act of courage gave me courage. As my first day of classes rolled around, I made it my personal mission to say hello and ask the name of every person I ran into on the elevator and every person I sat next to in my classes. It felt good to be able to meet new people and find out most people felt the same stress and anxiety I felt on the first day too. Jeana’s brave choice to come talk to us impacted me in ways that made me brave. Me being scared for my first day of classes, turned into me being ecstatic for my second day of classes. The journey college has been taking me through has been a roller coaster, but my friends and those around me have made it so much better.