When my roommate first walked into our soon-to-be dorm, she said it looked like a jail cell. Quite funny how this jail cell has become our favorite place to be on campus most of the time. But I’ve realized that’s the weird thing about college: not everything seems to go as you expected it to. Moreover, since I’ve only been here for approximately four weeks, I’ve already managed to keep a list of some things I’ve noticed that weren’t exactly what I had expected:
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Dining hall food doesn’t entirely suck. I love the constant reminder that I need to eat my five servings of greens from the salad bar right when I walk into the dining hall. But of course, there are the three ice cream machines placed on my way out of the dining hall, also reminding me to grab a scoop (or many scoops) before I leave.
- The library isn’t too shabby. Don’t get me wrong, going to the library before always felt like a reminder that exam week is approaching, but with five floors filled with big glass windows and comfy chairs, it’s no wonder I find myself there for a few hours chilling, doing homework with my friends.
- The expectations I held for myself for college aren’t even close to being met.
I’ve always been an aficionado about personal growth, looking to the future to bring myself to be a better version of who I was in the past. There were things about myself I absolutely hated in high school and vowed to not repeat in college. A lot of that fit within the categories of how I acted or how I presented myself to the world. With that, I promised that going into college I wouldn’t hold myself back due to fear or judgement and let that affect those things. I thought that stepping onto campus, I would magically transform these things about myself, because after all, I was starting all over in a new place. Funny thing is, to any person this makes no sense. Growth comes with change, a journey, we all know that. But weirdly, it wasn’t that first day of campus I really began realizing this. It was four weeks later after an interview that I thought went horribly wrong.
To keep it brief, I interviewed for a position that would represent my freshman class. It was my idea of the step in the right direction to put myself out there and show off my strengths in a productive way. The interview happened, and I immediately called my friend telling how it went. That is, telling her how badly it went. I felt uneasy, waiting for that rejection, and when it came later, it unphased me. I came home and immediately found myself re-evaluating how I’ve been awhile since I’ve gotten to college, asking myself question after question.
Why am I falling back into my high school version?
Why am I letting fear decide my actions?
Why am I doing everything I promised myself I wouldn’t do?
To be honest, I knew this interview meant nothing and that there was a problem rooted much deeper than that. The worst thing about knowing that the truth hurts is actually dealing with it. I knew for a while I wasn’t meeting those expectations of myself, but really seeing it manifest straight up sucked. Sucked really bad.
But how did I bounce back from that? Did I bounce back? Or did I just pretend it didn’t happen and moved on? After a few lingering thoughts at 12 AM, I figured I should actually make an effort to reach those expectations I had set. There was this thing I did in high school where I set three goals for the next day, so I figured that could be totally applicable now too.
So, that’s what I did.
Sadly, there is no happy ending, or any ending to this. The thing is, there never really is an ending. We’re all constantly growing and modifying ourselves to meet these expectations we hold for ourselves. Moral of the story is that you shouldn’t expect to meet those expectations and goals you hold about yourself in college or anywhere to come right away! Great thing is that they will come, if you productively work towards them.
Despite not being some of my expectations, there have been some things that have exceeded my hopes for college thus far:
- I am best friends with my roommate. I remind her to brush her teeth, we follow each other’s friends on Instagram, and like giving each other that extra push.
- I have time to do things I want. having only a few classes a day makes it way easier.
- I feel less homesick than I expected. I feel busy enough and am enjoying myself too much to distract myself from missing my friends, family, home cooked meals, and my dog (but he seems to be doing fine without me).