My first year away at college has been anything other than a typical one. For starters, it is my third year.
I attended UConn in the fall of 2020 as a freshman but, as we all know, classes were entirely online at this time. So I stayed home, and during that time I began to question where I wanted my career to go. Because of that, I decided to take a year off to work full-time and figure out what truly made me happy. I learned that I love working with the media, but would rather be behind the camera rather than in front of it. So, I spent the next year in a local community college taking all of the general education classes for a Communications degree. During the spring of 2023, I reapplied for admission here at UConn. And now my first semester is less than three weeks from finishing.
As the semester comes to a close, I’ve been reflecting on my journey not only this semester but the last three years of my life which have been nothing like what I had pictured them to be just a few years ago. I’ve gone through periods of deep sadness, of intense grief over the loss of the life I never got to live, while simultaneously feeling blessed for the path that the universe has decided I needed instead. In particular, there are three specific lessons I’ve learned over the last three months that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.
1. nothing good happens if you just sit and wait for it
As someone with social anxiety that has only been exacerbated since the COVID-19 pandemic, it has never been easy for me to randomly strike up a conversation with someone. I grew up in a tiny town (graduating class of 73 students!) where I knew everyone from ages four to 18, so I rarely had to get to know new people. Even when I did, my closest friends were extroverted, so I was able to meet people through them. So you can imagine how isolated I felt coming to a school of nearly 20,000 students where I knew no one. Everywhere I went I would be in a crowd of people, and yet felt so alone. My first few weeks were not enjoyable; when I wasn’t in class, I spent the bulk of my time alone in my apartment, praying that I could be like the kids I saw walking through campus with their friends or spending the weekends with their huge friend groups. There were multiple instances where I even considered breaking my lease so I could go back home and commute, so that way I could at least have some excuse for not having found my people. But as time went on, I decided one day that I was going to make myself sit down with at least one stranger a day and start a conversation with them.
The vast majority of those conversations went nowhere. Sometimes I got flat-out rejected; they would make it inexplicably clear that they weren’t interested in talking, so I would quickly wrap up the conversation and leave. Sometimes I would get their social media or phone number, only for the messages to die out eventually. But a few of them stuck, leading to beautiful friendships that I am eternally grateful for.
I have met countless friends through the clubs and organizations I’ve joined, the most influential by far being Her Campus, which has connected me to dozens of like-minded girls who truly make me feel like I belong. I met a gym buddy through one of the University’s fitness clubs, who I make a consistent effort to lift with a few times a week. One of my favorite people I’ve met this semester is a transfer student who I reached out to via Facebook because I liked her outfit in a post that she made. None of these people would have been in my life if I just went to class and then went back to my apartment, praying for someone else to do the work and say hi to me. College is a beautiful experience full of new people and amazing opportunities, but those things will not come if you don’t seek them out yourself.
Time waits for no one, no matter how much you may want it to.
2. sometimes your life story won’t be ‘typical,’ and that’s okay
We have all been spoon-fed a specific path that we should all follow: you graduate high school, immediately go to college, find your dream job right after, and then settle down and have a family. You are expected to know exactly what you want out of your life as soon as you enter college, even though you have zero real-life experience under your belt and, if you’re like me, have lived in the same place your entire life and have yet to see all that the world has to offer. I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to do for a career, but was in for a shock when I started to take my Intro Psychology classes and realized my passion was not becoming a therapist, so I had to take some time away from school to figure out what I really wanted out of my life. And the entire time I was trying to figure this out, I felt so sad that I was not living the ‘normal’ experience; that I wasn’t at school meeting new friends and working to build my career network. Every night I imagined my life differently, a life I was perfectly content with. However, I realized I would never be content until I learned to embrace my own path instead of focusing on others.
It hit me one day when I was having a conversation with a friend about having children. I have known ever since I was a young teenager that kids are not in the cards for me; of course, I love kids and enjoy spending time with them. But I have no desire to raise them, it does not seem personally fulfilling to me. And my friend was shocked, saying things like ‘How could you not want kids? Everyone wants kids!’ or ‘One day you’ll change your mind.’ But I knew there was no changing my mind, and I was especially not going to change my mind just because everyone else thinks that I should have children. Why would I do something I don’t want to do just because I am told to do it? That’s when I realized that my philosophy does not just apply to children, it applies to life as a whole. I do not need to do anything, let alone just because I feel like I am supposed to.
It took me a while to realize the reason I was so sad was not because I was upset with the life I was living, but rather because I was comparing my life to everyone else’s around me and I was sad that mine wasn’t fitting into their box. But you don’t need to fit into anyone else’s box, because it is their box, not yours. Your life is your own; you are free to live it however you want to, and do not ever feel guilty that your path is different from someone else’s. There is someone out there who wishes they had your life, so never take it for granted.
3. Life has a funny way of working itself out
I can’t count the number of times I cried during my freshman year; while typical for most people as they adjust to campus life and being away from home, I cried for the fact that I didn’t get to adjust to life in a new place. Instead, I did my classwork in my childhood bedroom, over Zoom meetings with professors and students that I never got the chance to meet. I mourned the version of me that never got to blossom, whose growth was instead stunted and forced to be put on pause while the entire world did the same. I felt like my life was doomed to be one I was not proud of, devoid of evolution, and that I would be stuck as the same person I have always been.
But because I stayed at home one year and went to community college for another, I was able to save myself upwards of $30,000, money that I will not need to repay later as crippling student loans. I took some of that money and went on not only one but two road trips with my best friend. I got to see the Grand Canyon, take a golf cart tour around Coronado Island with a kind stranger and his girlfriend, and drive the Blue Ridge Parkway while blasting the Foo Fighters. I got to hike Arches National Park, explore both the Wind and Mammoth Caves, and spend a night singing karaoke with strangers in a tiny town just outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. I met some of the sweetest people I have ever met at a hole-in-the-wall bar in Louisville, Kentucky. I spent three days at a hostel in New Orleans, Louisiana, where I got to meet people from all walks of life who I will never forget.
Had I come here my freshman year, I never would have met my amazing now roommate and by extension my second roommate, people whom I am truly blessed to call my friends. We met because I had posted online about looking for an apartment for this school year, and she reached out to me. After knowing each other for a few months and meeting only once, she brought me out to Dallas, Texas where I met some of her friends and went to an incredible two-day music festival where I had an absolute blast. Through that trip, I also met someone whom I thank the universe for every single day, someone I cannot imagine living my life without anymore.
I would have never had all of these beautiful experiences had I had the “traditional” college experience. I have no doubt that had things been different, the life I’d be living would be just as beautiful and rewarding. But I can say with 100% certainty that I wouldn’t want my life story to be written any differently.
No matter what happens in life, everything will always work out in the end. And if it hasn’t worked out yet, it’s not the end.