As I begin to take my decorations off my dorm walls piece by piece, I begin to feel a rush of emotions hit me. A feeling that I never expected to feel the last two weeks of freshman year. A tribute to my first year of college.
A tribute to welcome week, my first steps on campus, as an independent. There will be plenty more first weeks in the book, but there is nothing like this one. There’s something so seamless to the transition of home life to college life here at WVU. You’re filled with required adventure or community service activities, tours of the campus, fall fest and well let’s not forget the parties too. This week is essentially your first chance to figure out the social aspect of college.
A tribute to our first college football game. Waking up to your alarm at 6:00 A.M. which then becomes routine for the entire season. Trying to piece together the first tailgate outfit. Is it too much spirit or too little? Walking into the blue lot in front of the stadium for the first time and being absolutely overwhelmed with excitement. Thinking, “This is it. This is college.” Not knowing when to go into the stadium and where. Being able to hear “Let’s go” … “Mountaineers” for the first time with a stadium full of fans. It’s easy to say the feeling of being a true mountaineer is at your first football game.
A tribute to celebrating your first Morgantown birthday. A tribute to that first college hookup. A tribute to that first forgotten night. A tribute to the first time at Annex. A tribute to the first night you decide to stay in, rather than go out. A tribute to the end of your first semester.
The time those final grades seem like life or death. When this was your real chance to prove to your parents that you managed this semester just fine. To explain to them that this semester was never going to be perfect academically, but you made the best adjustment to college academics as you could. The time to take a month’s long break from all the friends you’ve been surrounded with every day since move in. When it’s also the time you realize you can’t live without those friends, so they come home and visit you.
And finally, a tribute to all second semester has been. The long and cold week of recruitment, but it all seeming ok when you run down to your new home on high street. The socials, the date parties, big & little reveal and of course initiation. The boy you fell head over heels for even though you promised yourself you wouldn’t in college. Yelling at the TV like I’m my dad during March Madness. The friends you may have lost from the first semester, but the new ones you have gained for life. Your bank account for all that it has lost this first year.
And to your first and last time packing up your dorm room. Leaving my freshman year behind is a lot more emotional than walking out on the last day of high school. However, I am lucky to have these memories to cherish for a lifetime. And to the memories, I will create past this first year.