To every fresher, especially gap year babies, doomscrolling Instagram and crying into their hostel Maggi… relax. You’re not late, you’re just preheating.
There’s always that one fresher on Instagram: glossy hair, matching co-ords, aesthetic hostel room with fairy lights that don’t flicker, holding a Stanley cup like she’s already the protagonist of a Netflix coming-of-age series. Meanwhile, you? You’re crying in your shared bathroom because you don’t know how to attach a PDF to OneNote, your room looks like a war zone, and the only fairy light in your life is the phone torch you use when the light trips.
You’re not late. You’re not behind. You’re not a failure because you didn’t walk onto campus fully branded and bejewelled. You’re in your soft launch era, and baby, that’s where all the magic begins.
Don’t fall for the Instagram illusion.
Listen, Instagram is a scam. No one’s life looks like their grid, not even the people posting it. Behind every “hot girl college morning routine” is an unwashed bowl of Maggi and a didi screaming about why her laundry is 6.2kgs and not 6kgs. Those aesthetic reels where girls are doing pilates at 7 a.m. and journalling affirmations? Yeah, cut to them crying in the washroom because they missed a deadline.
The ‘polished’ collegiate girlies aren’t better than you. They’re just better at faking. Comparing your Day 1 to their Junior Year highlight is like comparing raw cookie dough to a five-tier cake. You’re not undercooked. You’re just still in the oven, baby.
Gap year / Drop year anxiety: PSA you’re not expired milk.
Gap year freshers, I see you spiralling. You think everyone around you is 18 and thriving while you’re “old” at 20. Babe. You are not expired bread. You are not late to the party. You are just showing up with a better playlist.
Taking a gap year, repeating exams, restarting a degree, none of that makes you “behind.” It makes you seasoned. Experienced. Lowkey funnier. While everyone else was learning TikTok dances, you were out here learning resilience. That’s character development, not delay.
What does the ‘soft launch era’ actually mean?
A “soft launch” isn’t just when couples post half a hand on Insta to announce bae. It’s also when you show up to college still figuring out your aesthetic, your friends, your major, and your metabolism. You don’t have to arrive fully formed. You’re allowed to be blurry.
Soft launch era is trial and error. It’s eating hostel samosas for dinner because you can’t cook yet. It’s wearing mismatched outfits because laundry betrayed you. It’s saying “yes” to everything until you realise you’re overbooked and need a nap. It’s not ugly, it’s authentic. And it’s temporary. The hard launch will come.
Romanticise the chaos, don’t hide it.
Your soft launch era isn’t meant to look polished, it’s meant to look like bloopers. And bloopers are the best part of the movie. Instead of stressing over not being “aesthetic” enough, romanticise it. Take pictures of your Maggi plate. Laugh at the fairy lights that never work. Document your breakdowns like they’re part of a scrapbook you’ll laugh over in three years.
You don’t have to hide the mess. The mess is the point. Chaos = character development, and trust me, Instagram girlies can only dream of that level of authenticity.
Everyone’s timeline is a scam anyway.
Hot take: there is no “behind” in life. The people who look ahead now might peak too early, and the ones fumbling now might glow up later. College isn’t a race. It’s a group project where no one knows the rubric.
So what if someone already has a LinkedIn-worthy internship or a perfect friend group? Good for them. That’s their timeline. Yours will look different, and different doesn’t mean worse. You’re not playing catch-up; you’re building at your own pace. And babe, slow growth is still growth.
Growth takes time (and so does a glow-up).
Here’s the thing: you wouldn’t judge a cake for being raw after five minutes in the oven. So why are you judging yourself three weeks into college? Core memories take time to bake. Friend groups take time to form. Identities take time to shape. You’re not late, you’re simmering.
The girls who look “perfect” now? Half of them will burnout by semester three. You, slow-cooked in the soft launch era? You’ll be thriving when it matters. Patience is the real flex.
So stop spiralling over whether you’re “behind.” You’re not late. You’re not mid. You’re not stuck. You’re just in your soft launch era: messy, blurry, half-formed, but on the way to becoming iconic. Trust the process. Preheat before you glow.
Want more chaotic chronicles, caffeine-fuelled confessions, and campus survival cheat codes? Slide into Her Campus at MUJ. And if you see someone in eating samosas for dinner and calling it character development… hi, that’s me, Niamat Dhillon at HCMUJ.