6 Overwhelming Feelings You Experience After Finishing Your Freshman Year of College

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1. Loneliness 

Whether it was 3 pm or 3 am, your suite-mate was a room away and your best friend was down the hall. Now, you’re alone. Your best friend is an hour and a half away and you’re totally unsure of what to do with yourself and all of this spare time. You have no idea how to bounce back from spending the past ten months of your life constantly surrounded by the people you don’t know how you spent your first eighteen years without.

I still have no idea what to do with myself.

2. Nostalgia 

Looking back on freshmen year, you realize that was one of the best times of your life. You even kind of enjoyed staying up until 6 am to finish a project due later that afternoon for your quirky but cool professor. Certain songs and places bring you back to some of your fondest moments. You can’t believe that’s all they are now, moments. Memories.

3. Reality

Freshmen “year” felt like summer vacation. You didn’t realize how quickly it was over until BAM. You’re sitting in your seat that you’ve claimed (except for that ONE time the obnoxious girl in class took it) for every Tuesday and Thursday for the past semester, ready for your final exam.
Now you realize how quickly time goes as you get older and reality sinks in. In three short years you’ll be preparing for grad school or the real world. You finally understand where Peter pan was coming from. You start looking for internships, even sneak a little peak at job openings in your field. Imaging what your future is going to hold and how much better everything can get from here on out.

4. Boredom 

You probably learned the hard way that there is no such thing as an “easy major”. You either have a whole lot of time to do a whole lot of nothing with or the reverse. Whether it was your general education course that killed you and you had to put in so much more time then you ever imagined-for a GEN ED-or it was your major class that you constantly had projects out of the ass for…

Once your home, you hopefully have no more school work to worry about until August. And let’s face it,  you are bored. Your friends are bored. Your suburb is boring. But when has there ever been anything to do in your small town?

Take a drive. Go to the beach. Create something. Go for a walk. Just do yourself a favor and spend as much time driving with your windows down as possible.
And a piece of advice: if you don’t have a job, get one.

5. Individuality 

All throughout high school, you were secluded to your “group”. Your best friends, your family, your clique, your niche. It was somewhere that you felt comfortable and didn’t want to break down the walls to see beyond your own little world.

Once you got to college, one way or another, you realized there was a world far beyond what you knew. You began to find yourself. Outside of the sports you played, the labels you were given, and the sheltered walls of your high school.

You’re still finding yourself but you’re having a hell of a good time in the process.

6. Regret

Not in the sense of “I regret going to *insert school here*”, because that was the best decision of your life. But regret that you didn’t try the escargot (take my word for that though, be happy you didn’t) or walk up that cute boy the last week of classes and introduce yourself. That you didn’t put yourself out there or take as many chances as you should have. You didn’t enjoy the life that was placed in your hands to it’s fullest extent.

All the while, realizing that you can take a few nights off to study because, yeah, your GPA is that much more important. Even though the thought of a “rooftop party” sounds pretty damn cool. You have three more years left, kid. Take advantage of everything thrown your way and if it’s not thrown your way, make it happen.

You won’t regret it.