Do you remember when you were 16 years old, walled up in your room of your parents house counting down the days till you moved out on your own? Maybe if you were like me, you just couldn’t wait. Adulthood sounded a lot like freedom, and at the time you were living in what could be described as a dictatorship. Sure you followed the rules and did your share of the housework when you felt like it, but it never felt like you were truly contributing to something you also owned. When I still lived at home my mom used to threaten us kids with the phrase, “It’s my house, my rules. When you get your own place then you can make the decisions about it, but until then you do as I say”. As a 16-year-old who was fairly independent, I took that pretty seriously. In my head I used to daydream of what my future apartment would look like, mentally decorating it, and envisioning a quaint but stylishly cozy corner that I could declare as mine and mine alone. I used to doodle blueprints in notebooks—you could say I was invested.
A few months after turning 18, the fall of my first semester of university, I did exactly what I had been fantasizing about doing for years. I left home. I moved over to a city I had never visited before, (Victoria, BC) to a university no one from my graduating class decided to enroll in (UVic). And while it wasn’t the apartment of my dreams, but instead a drab dorm with faded yellowish walls, I made it my own. In my mind I hit a major milestone. One that impacted my future, my perspective, and everything I knew about myself. My first year as a university student propelled me from an inexperienced teenager into a young adult.
During this freshman year I learned about struggling. Not that I had never struggled in the past with various things—but true solitary struggle. I grew up, I lost weight, I dyed my hair, I experimented with who I wanted to be, the type of people I wanted to be around, and what I wanted to do with my life whenever I could. I explored the city, I tried new recipes, I took classes I didn’t think I would like. I cried over tests, and essays, and marks, and group projects way more than I’d like to admit. I was forced to accept that just sailing by on this idea that I was a “smart kid” did not mean I would be a successful academic. I fought with my dorm roommates. I fought with my (now ex) boyfriend. I fought against my own mental health. Eventually I transferred from UVic into UAlberta, a decision that helped me stabilize my mental health, grades, and made me become an overall happier person. Ultimately I changed. I learned to move on from the teenage angst that had plagued me while still living at home.
I realize now, looking back on that first year of university, adulthood and independence, that as tough as it was, had I been given the chance to go back and do it over again I wouldn’t change a single thing. As hard as the first year of university and being out on my own was, I have no regrets about the decisions I made. Sure I may have “wasted” money on a university I wouldn’t end up graduating from, but that means nothing in comparison to the growth I experienced.
My hope is, if any freshmen or soon-to-be high school graduates are reading this, that they look forward to this first year and reflect back on it when they too are more established adults. The first year is the hardest, not because the workload is heavy or so challenging, but because growing up and change happens so fast.
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