I knew from my first day of college, freshman year, that my best years here would be my first and my last. When you’re a freshman, everything is tailored towards you. Events encouraging you to get out and meet people, make connections with your classmates and make friends. Special events all across campus especially in your first few months, take place celebrating you. Senior year is when everything will be sentimental, all of the last first days, last practices, last parties; everything is special. It’s the years in between, sophomore and junior, that are just filler.
Even though I knew it was coming, I still wasn’t prepared. My sophomore year has been, for lack of a better word, miserable.
Obviously, I’ve had some fun here and there on weekends with my friends, going to events and getting back into the swing of things, but seventy-five percent of the time, I do not have fun.
I mourn my freshman year nearly every day. From my cozy room in Rob, to the girls on my floor, to my easy schedule, to the side quests I took with my friends, to meeting new people. Everything about my freshman year was perfect. I had the perfect balance of my academic and social lives. There were some classes I didn’t love, but nothing too demanding. I loved to have busy days packed with classes, clubs, and ending my day going to whatever events were going on.
This year is completely different.
For starters, I hate being busy. The classes I’m taking demand so much time for homework that the clubs I once loved to go to and be present at now fall to the bottom of my priorities list. My mindset has turned from “I get to” to “I have to.” I hate having a negative outlook on it, but I just can’t help myself from being upset when I have to pause my studying or homework to go to a club meeting for an hour, then try to get back into my studying flow.
Yes, academics should come first, but now it dominates everything.
My social life has taken a turn for the worse, I would say. My freshman year, my friends and I traveled in a pack, always coordinating schedules to eat, go to the gym, and arrive together wherever we went. Now there are days when I don’t even see them.
I made a goal for myself to make new friends, which has been a lot harder than expected. As a freshman the university forces you to socialize, to make friends by putting you in proximity with people your age. This year, everyone is on their own. I didn’t realize how hard it is to make friends with sophomores or upperclassmen who already have their established friend groups. Every new relationship I’ve made is semi-surface-level. Friends in class, to walk together to the Hickey, or talk quickly when we see each other in the gym, but that’s that. Part of this reason is that they have their own friends, and I have mine, but the other part is I do not have the time or energy to be able to put into other people right now, which honestly sucks.
My freshman year, every time my family called, or I saw an old teacher, coach, or classmate, I told them I had no complaints. I gleamed over the university, how much fun it is, how much I love everything about it here. That is not the case now. I still love Bonaventure with all of my heart, but when asked how things are, I can’t even lie. I say it’s been awful, because it has been.
I spend a lot of days feeling homesick for summers back at home. I loved long days cramming as much in as possible and rewarding myself with free time. I loved to get up early, go to the gym for a few hours before work, having those few hours to exercise and feel good before starting my day. Back on campus, the gym is a chore that takes an hour or two out of my studying, another thing that turned from a “get to” to a “have to.”
With fall break within reach, I am praying I will be able to spend at least a fraction of that time doing things I want to do. I already have a list of readings and assignments due at the end of break, so I know I will be busy. I want to spend time with my siblings; I want to go to the pumpkin patch with my boyfriend; I want to go for a long walk. All things I just haven’t had time for.
As the semester continues, I have to remind myself that all this negative stress will pass. For now, I just hope my second semester will be everything I need and more. I hope my second semester will resemble at least a fraction of what life once was, my perfect freshman year.