College. It’s something that has always been in the back of my mind. Though it always felt far away, like it would never actually happen, and I would remain in high school for all of eternity. But that’s not the case. In fact, quite the opposite is true. One day I was in college, when just the previous week I was still savoring what felt like an endless summer due to the pandemic. Like many college students, my school took great precautions when it came to moving in (Which was good!). Moving in was actually a fairly simple process. My parents and I only needed to make one trip to bring all my stuff from our car to my room. After about thirty minutes, everything was put away and I was saying goodbye to my parents.
As a college freshman, I had no idea what college was going to be like. But it was so unbelievably different from what I had been expecting that I don’t think I could have ever imagined it. One thing that I was absolutely not anticipating was being homesick. Over the course of my high school career, I have grown to absolutely despise my hometown. I was counting down the days until I could leave that small town behind me and finally live my life in the big city. But what I hadn’t realized was how accustomed I was to my life, and how I had never actually lived anywhere else. I was so used to my life in my small, protective town that I never even thought about what it would actually be like to live anywhere else, especially someplace starkly different than what I was used to. This combined with the fact that all my classes were online made me determined to go home. After exchanging many phone calls and emails with the housing office and my parents, we agreed that the best course of action would be for me to go home and continue with my classes completely remotely. So after only thirteen days, I headed back to my small home and got my refund for housing. As I write this, I have been home for less than twenty four hours, but it feels like I haven’t been home in months. My time in college was absolutely horrific, to sum it up. I cried every single night, and didn’t talk with a single other student while I was there. I spent hours at night looking at my ceiling and wishing I was back home in my comfortable bed and not in a strange new place on what felt like a slab of concrete. I was completely and totally miserable.
Looking back on it now, I probably should have tried a bit harder to make some friends. But my family has made it absolutely clear to me that grades come before friends, and I have to say that I agree with them, especially now that everything's online, I need to make sure that I am still working hard in my classes. To sum up, so far my college experience has been the wildest ride, and I could never imagine it ending up like this. Let’s hope that the next few years have primarily good experiences in store.
