My daughter struggled the beginning of her freshman year and went through some things that I think a lot of kids struggle with. I wanted to share this article she wrote last year as she wrapped up her freshman year as advice to your incoming freshman as they start on their journey.
As my freshman year of college comes to a close, I have had some time to think about what has happened throughout the year and the period of adjustment that all freshmen go through. College is a time to try new things, a place where usually no one knows you or has any of the preconceived notions about you that some high school peers may have. It is a time, at least I thought, where I could be someone new and different, a completely different me for a completely different chapter of my life. However, I have learned that that is not what college is really about. This time in our lives is not about becoming a different person entirely, but instead about better crafting and understanding the person that each of us already is.
I thought that my college experience was supposed to be about reinventing myself, about becoming the person my high-school self had always wanted to be. I tried to create a new persona for myself, someone who was more outgoing and what I thought was more interesting, but eventually it became exhausting to keep up the façade. What I did not understand was that there was nothing wrong with the person I already was. I just needed to appreciate and accept myself for who I was, not who I thought I should be.
This is not to say that people cannot change or that fresh starts are a bad thing. The wonderful thing about people is that we are always changing, always becoming new versions of ourselves. It is just that this reinvention should come from a place of self-understanding and acceptance, not from a place of hatred or resentment. We should not want to change ourselves because we do not like our old selves, but because we want to be the best versions of the people we already are.
College is one of the best places to truly become your best self. There are so many new clubs and opportunities that it is easy to find your niche, to really find the things that you love and the people who will support you.
But there is no sense in participating in activities that you do not enjoy or trying to act in a certain way just to fit an ideal mold in your head. Sometimes there is a lot of pressure—oftentimes from the perceived notions about people around us—to act a certain way or be a certain person. And a college setting can seem like the perfect place to put that new character or personality into practice. Yet, there is nothing to be gained from being false and everything to be gained from understanding ourselves and learning more about who we already are.
I have learned since the beginning of last semester that I am not truly that person I was trying so hard to be. I can admit that I am more introverted and all of those books I eventually brought to school and stacked in my room are actually (gasp!) for pleasure reading. And that is okay, actually that is more than okay. There are all kinds of people in the world and that diversity is what makes our lives so interesting.
I am still in the process of finding myself (however cliché that may seem), but I have realized that by accepting myself for who I really am—not who I wished I could be—I have found the activities that I truly enjoy and the friends that appreciate and support me just as I am. So college should be a time to explore and try new things, to take risks and to really make the time count. But it should also be a time of introspection and understanding, a time when we can truly grow as people and better understand and appreciate ourselves in the context of these new and exciting experiences.
↧