By Allie Maniglia
This year, as a whole, has been somewhat of an emotional roller coaster. There have been a few roadblocks and a few setbacks, which needless to say have caused a bit of stress. Grades have always played a huge role in my life. One little minus in front of an A would send my whole world spinning. I was definitely, and continue to be my harshest critic. So needless to say, I had some huge expectations for myself going into my first semester back in August. While I wouldn’t go back and change anything about my freshman year, I do know there are a few things I wish I had known and paid more attention to at the beginning of the year.
College is definitely a completely different world from high school. While in high school you take classes you have to, and memorize the information just for the test, in college you have the chance to finally take classes that interest you. While you do have to meet a few requirements, and have a certain amount of humanities courses, or natural sciences, and so on, you have the chance to choose them from a unfathomably large selection of classes.
College is definitely a completely different world from high school. While in high school you take classes you have to, and memorize the information just for the test, in college you have the chance to finally take classes that interest you. While you do have to meet a few requirements, and have a certain amount of humanities courses, or natural sciences, and so on, you have the chance to choose them from a unfathomably large selection of classes.
This being said, there are some classes you do have to take that are prerequisites for your major. Being a hopeful Public Relations major, I was told that there were two main classes I have to take before my spring semester of my sophomore year. PSYCH 100 sounded super interesting, but ECON 102…that was daunting. At first, I didn’t think it would be a big deal, but after missing the mark on the first exam, I started to panic. I studied and studied, but couldn’t seem to grasp the concepts. One of the most beautiful things about Econ, however, was the fact that there were guided study groups, and Liontutors to save my life. Now, I of course, didn’t really learn about these things until my grade was already on a downward spiral, but once I did learn and start attending these programs, my grade drastically changed. Now if I had to change one thing about my first semester, it would definitely be to never have had taken Econ…ever. While the chances of that are highly unrealistic, what I really wish I had done was taken the extra money to go to Lion Tutors from the beginning. The extra reviews could have saved my grade (I passed, but still…it was a struggle). The moral of this story is, if you’re not too great at Econ, you’re most likely not alone, and if you ever need someone to cry over it with, I’m your girl.
While grades are definitely a huge stress, I’ve found that so are people. During the first week of school, it seemed as if everyone had these huge cliques of friends. They did everything together, and were never found walking on campus alone. For me, that wasn’t the case. I had a few friends from summer session, and a few people from back home that I would meet up with occasionally, but I found it really hard to meet my “clique.” I felt like those people already found their best friends, and that there was something wrong with me because I hadn’t. After talking to my sisters, and friends in different classes, they too found it difficult to meet those lasting friends. I had met some people in class that I would talk to in class, but the friendships never really would survive past those classes. We never hung out, and honestly, that was okay with me. In the end, I really haven’t met a huge amount of people that I’m close with, through classes. It was only until I joined a THON committee, and got more involved in the organization, did I meet people I really clicked with. The more I think about it now, I wish I hadn’t beat myself up over not meeting the right people right away. What matters the most is that I met the right people, and if that had to take a few extra weeks than the people who were best friends with the first person they saw on campus, that’s okay with me.
With making new friends, comes a lot of late nights spent watching movies, and ordering pizza. While it’s fun to do these things every day, it’s not exactly productive. Every Wednesday, a group of my best friends and I would get together to watch the most recent season of American Horror Story, as the new episodes aired. We would end up spending from around 7:00 p.m. until midnight in my friend’s dorm, avoiding responsibilities, and putting off our homework until we were too tired to do it once we got back to our dorms. While my grades never really faltered from this, I know they could’ve for sure. I probably should’ve made sure to get my work done before heading up to east, but binge watching Parks and Recreation on Netflix seemed a lot more important to me. This of course lead to me freaking out about deadlines and putting a lot more pressure on myself than I needed to…which is definitely something I should’ve taken into account, but of course saw against that.
My point with this is that even if you have your whole year planned out, you think you’ll meet your best friends the first day, you’ll get all straight A’s, and you’ll learn to balance your time instantly, don’t be surprised if it doesn’t happen right away. Things might turn in a completely different direction than you had anticipated, and that’s perfectly fine. I’m the queen of worrying and a complete perfectionist, so for me to resort to procrastination shows that it can really happen to anyone. If you’re fearful of not having complete control over these things, it’s okay. It’s okay to show emotion, and in the end, you’ll learn from your mistakes. The sky won’t fall, the world won’t end, and you’ll be fine.
While grades are definitely a huge stress, I’ve found that so are people. During the first week of school, it seemed as if everyone had these huge cliques of friends. They did everything together, and were never found walking on campus alone. For me, that wasn’t the case. I had a few friends from summer session, and a few people from back home that I would meet up with occasionally, but I found it really hard to meet my “clique.” I felt like those people already found their best friends, and that there was something wrong with me because I hadn’t. After talking to my sisters, and friends in different classes, they too found it difficult to meet those lasting friends. I had met some people in class that I would talk to in class, but the friendships never really would survive past those classes. We never hung out, and honestly, that was okay with me. In the end, I really haven’t met a huge amount of people that I’m close with, through classes. It was only until I joined a THON committee, and got more involved in the organization, did I meet people I really clicked with. The more I think about it now, I wish I hadn’t beat myself up over not meeting the right people right away. What matters the most is that I met the right people, and if that had to take a few extra weeks than the people who were best friends with the first person they saw on campus, that’s okay with me.
With making new friends, comes a lot of late nights spent watching movies, and ordering pizza. While it’s fun to do these things every day, it’s not exactly productive. Every Wednesday, a group of my best friends and I would get together to watch the most recent season of American Horror Story, as the new episodes aired. We would end up spending from around 7:00 p.m. until midnight in my friend’s dorm, avoiding responsibilities, and putting off our homework until we were too tired to do it once we got back to our dorms. While my grades never really faltered from this, I know they could’ve for sure. I probably should’ve made sure to get my work done before heading up to east, but binge watching Parks and Recreation on Netflix seemed a lot more important to me. This of course lead to me freaking out about deadlines and putting a lot more pressure on myself than I needed to…which is definitely something I should’ve taken into account, but of course saw against that.
My point with this is that even if you have your whole year planned out, you think you’ll meet your best friends the first day, you’ll get all straight A’s, and you’ll learn to balance your time instantly, don’t be surprised if it doesn’t happen right away. Things might turn in a completely different direction than you had anticipated, and that’s perfectly fine. I’m the queen of worrying and a complete perfectionist, so for me to resort to procrastination shows that it can really happen to anyone. If you’re fearful of not having complete control over these things, it’s okay. It’s okay to show emotion, and in the end, you’ll learn from your mistakes. The sky won’t fall, the world won’t end, and you’ll be fine.