Advice For The Future Student: My College Story
College. It was a topic talked about all my life but I never really imagined that the time would come. Now I’m 18 and living in a shared dorm room two hours away from the life I’ve known forever. I’m writing this as I’m nearing the end of my first semester and I think I can easily say it hasn’t been anything like I expected, my mood throughout these past few months has varied quite frequently. One week I’m chilling having a grand old time and the next I feel so stressed I could explode. I have found through talking to the people around me that I’m not alone in feeling like this and it has helped me to realize that life kind of comes in waves, it’s not going to be easy all the time.
Let’s start from the beginning by traveling back in time to August twentieth, also known as move in day. A lot of us were feeling a lot of different emotions upon arriving here for the first time. Some people were sad, some were already homesick and some were really excited. Personally I remember thinking I was ready to leave home, I was eager to get out of my house and to create a fresh start. I live in Braintree, Massachusetts and there’s nothing really wrong with my town but I was bored. I was ready to move up, ready to see what else was out there. I also remember thinking I could do this all alone. I thought that moving out meant I wouldn’t need to talk to my parents as much or really rely on them at all. I was wrong. Being here has increased my ability to act independently and I appreciate that but just because I can be independent sometimes doesn’t mean I have to be all the time. It’s ok to reach out to your parents and it’s ok to accept help from others. About mid semester I realized this and since then I would say that my relationship with my mom has been the best it’s been in a while. I even find myself texting her some of the most pointless things just because. For example, the other day I sent her a picture of my breakfast because why not? I mean it was a good breakfast, a bit of a healthier upgrade from my usual everything bagel or belgium waffle. At first I didn’t want to text my parents and I thought that just because I wasn’t at home I could just kind of cut all my ties to home as well. In highschool we didn’t always get along very well and not saying everythings perfect now but distance helps. I have been especially grateful to be able to reach out to my mom for advice and it just goes to prove that having an outside source to talk to really is needed sometimes. My advice to students starting college is to make sure that you reach out to someone at least every once in a while. It doesn’t have to be your parents but simply having someone to talk to can really benefit your mood throughout the day. Just because you can do it alone doesn’t mean you have too.
Like just about everyone in this room, I am here undecided. I feel like being a student undecided is something that can be frowned upon but I have only found myself to be happy with my choice. After seeing the workload that some of my peers have combined with their lack of confidence in their choice of majors, it’s easy to say that I’m ok with my decision to explore my options. The part about the workload is something I’m specifically aware of since I know that I procrastinate almost every assignment given to me. In just about every one of my audio journals for this class I in some way talked about doing my homework on time or studying more efficiently. *play audio journal clip time stamp 33* I have seen that an undecided major has significantly less work than a nursing major since my roommate is in nursing and at least I can say I’m confident that I don’t want to take that route. Observing other people and their majors has really helped me to see what path I may want to take so I would suggest you do the same. I guess what I’m saying is don’t rush your choices and even if you choose to come to college with a major, it doesn’t mean you’re stuck with it for the rest of your life. It was actually after doing this class’s second project that I found out what may interest me, “I looked into the communications major. More specifically the public relation and journalism aspect” and I interviewed “Jesse Miller, a professor at UNE who teaches in multiple genres of courses including fiction, poetry, journalism, composition, and of course communications.” (McDonald Project 2). I mean who knows if this is 100% the path I want to take but it’s a good start and it’s comforting to know that nothing I do is quite set in stone. Changing or choosing your major is a simple thing to do with the help of your advisor and we already have plenty of other things on our plates as students, so stressing about our majors shouldn’t have to be one of them.
To wrap things up I think I’ll end off by saying go slow. I have a tendency to be impulsive and that will later lead to me overthinking. Looking back to some of these circumstances I see how just a few extra minutes of thinking would have prevented some future stress. So in all seriousness, you don’t have to answer that text right away, you’re allowed to say no to something and it is ok to put yourself first. I’ve been here just about three months and I’ve first hand seen that some days it may be harder than others. I’ve learned that college isn’t easy but because of that we learn to take the good with the bad.
