EXPECTATION: You’ll be fine getting up for an 8 a.m. class, because you were up that early every day for class in high school. You totally got this.
REALITY: After only one weekend of hanging out late with your new friends, your 8 a.m. on Monday morning makes you want to drop out of college entirely. Oops.
EXPECTATION: Your friends’ schedules will work out perfectly with yours, so that nobody ever has to eat a meal in the dining hall alone or walk into a giant lecture hall by themselves.
REALITY: “What do you mean you don’t get a chance to go to lunch until two? What am I going to do?!” *ends up sitting at a table alone, pretending to text between bites*
EXPECTATION: Hot boys. Hot boys in your classes, hot boys on your way to class, hot boys living in your building. Zac Efron look-a-likes galore!
REALITY: Your school is predominately female. Great for making friends, not so great for finding a date to take you out on Friday nights. Sisters before Misters, right?
EXPECTATION: Your dorm room is cute, functional, and has clean carpet.
REALITY: Your dorm room is so little that if you and your roommate both laid in your own beds and reached out to the side, you could hold hands. There is a mysterious carpet stain in the center of the room. You guys sadly decide to bunk your beds, but you’re pleasantly surprised…
EXPECTATION: College classes will be really similar to your AP or Honors classes from high school, because that’s what your school said they were preparing you for.
REALITY: You’re amazed in your first class on Monday when your professor introduces himself, passes out a syllabus, and then tells you all that you’re free to go. The following week, you’re amazed by the same professor when he assigns a 4-page paper due to his office before your next class with him. You long for the high school days when you had weeks to write a paper that long.
EXPECTATION: You’ll make a slew of friends that you’ll always be able to count on.
REALITY: The people you met at orientation will likely not become your best friends, and the people from your dorm that you hang with during the first week of classes will gradually fall away from your circle. You will, however, probably end up with a really great, tight group of friends that you’ll do everything with.