As my first year of college comes to a close, I am so excited. Don’t get me wrong, college has been terrific, but I am exhausted. The past few weeks have been full of stress and maybe a few tears here and there. But I have learned a lot, and I am not just talking about what I have learned from my dreaded GEC courses. Incoming freshmen, read what I’ve learned during my first year of college and do as you wish.
Something I learned at the beginning of my freshman year was to not take something just because it was handed to you. I don’t mean like a stranger trying to give you a piece of candy (I learned not to accept that in elementary school), but what I do mean is that you should accept something because you want to, and not because society says you should.
A good example of this is when I dropped sorority recruitment because I got to a point where I didn’t know what I wanted anymore. I wasn’t going to join a sorority just to say I was in a sorority. I wasn’t going to surround myself with people that didn’t accept me for who I am. So, I waited. I waited until I knew what I was looking for in a sorority before joining one. Another example would be standing up for my grades. If I ever knew that I deserved a better grade, or even had a chance to get a better grade, I would do it. Because of this, I learned to stand up for myself.
In high school, I always avoided confrontation, and this meant I avoided standing up for myself. I know that’s super wimpy, but that’s just how I was. This year I was presented with many circumstances that pushed me, and I ultimately had to decide between standing by and letting myself be walked over or to standing up for myself and allowing my thoughts to finally be heard. I finally chose the latter, and I have never been so proud of myself.
Something else that I have done, which has made me proud, has been making good grades. Grades have always been a big deal for me since middle school, and I knew that I wanted to keep it that way in college However, there came a time when I felt like giving up. School just got so tedious and, honestly, really boring. Like I said before, General Education Courses are dreadful. I didn’t like science in high school, so there’s no way I’m going to like it now.
All in all, freshman year has been a year of learning how college works. From learning how to study, procrastinate, find shortcuts to class and everything in between, freshman year has been a good teacher.
