Imagine this: Your parents drop you off half way across the country in a building where you are required to share a bathroom with twenty other girls. The next day, you are expected to find your French class which is in the English building and your English class which is in the music building and your communications class which is in the science building. You haven't even found an outlet in your dorm yet. Each professor expects that you have studied, annotated, and memorized their extensive syllabus. You still aren't sure you are in the right class. After the rat-race of classes, you are invited to join about 17 trillion clubs, ministries, intermurals, and choirs. Honestly, you'd just like to remember whether you live in room 212 or 220. You reach your dorm room and are so close to sinking into that fresh-out-of-the-plastic mattress pad when you find out that sleep doesn't exist in college. Somehow, it's suddenly 8am and the cup of coffee in your hand is your only life source.
Welcome to freshman year!
This past week I had a few embarrassing freshman moments that included slamming a door into my own face while talking to a "cool upperclassman" and almost slamming a door into Dr. Bowling's, the president of Olivet, face. My embarrassment also reminded me of my first "freshman moment," the first day of classes when I sat in the wrong classroom until they took attendance and I realized I was not taking an advanced diction class this semester. Awkward... I asked some of my friends for their most embarrassing moments on campus thus far. One said she wore her sweater inside-out all day before an older girl came by and told her. Another walked into the boy's bathroom. I think I have been pretty lucky compared to that.
But seriously, being a freshman is weird. You are technically an adult, but you feel like a little kid on campus with all of these "grown-ups." Also, you still call people grown-ups which may be a problem. You start to realize that you don't have to tell anyone when you feel like leaving campus to drive around. You don't even have to go to class if you don't want to. And then, if you are like me, you plunge into a panic attack because you aren't sure you are a responsible enough adult to be responsible for yourself.
I like it though. It's this new, terrifying phase of live, but you get to do it with 800 other people. It's like an awkward, extremely lost, but learning community.
Freshman, we are tough. College is hard, people. Not everyone survives that first semester. Those who do deserve an honorary Olympic medal, in my unbiased opinion.
Comment with some of your "freshman moments" from college. :) Blessings!
Before freshman year began I along with other freshman students sat in a room ready to take the ACT. The teacher went around asking where we were from. Of course I said Texas. During a break I was coming back from the bathroom and I passed a group of boys. One of them called me Texas. From then on my nickname was "Texas". Only a few people remember this since most who called me that no longer go to Olivet. (It's not embarrassing but it's a memory from Freshman year that I can remember)
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