Since I’m getting ready to start my second semester of college, I thought I would take some time to sit down and write about the ups and downs of my first semester. It was definitely an experience. Before I started college, I found myself looking for blog posts where college students shared their experience with their first semester, year, etc, so I thought it would be kind of fun not only to write it so that other curious people could see it, but also so that I can look back on this post in the future. Also, I know that my grandma will probably read this & she is probably curious about what I’ve been up to. 🙂 Hope you all enjoy this little look into my life!

Obviously in college there are going to be both ups and downs–as is life. My first semester was no exception. I feel like the first semester of college is a little rough for everyone. So, my downs are probably going to outweigh my ups, but I think that’s pretty typical for the first semester. Without further ado, here are the ups and downs of my first semester!

Ups

• Making new friends: One nice thing about starting college is that you get to make new friends. I didn’t make a whole bunch of friends this semester, but I did meet my friend Jewell who is one of my best friends now. She’s also introduced me to some of her closest friends who I am pretty close with now too. 🙂 If you don’t make a million friends your first semester, don’t worry. You only really need a couple really good friends and you’re good to go.
• Getting to gain new experiences through the college: Most colleges have events that they put on for the students. My college has done things like free arcade nights, free movie nights, free entry to a trampoline park, and a lot of other things. I went to a lot of those things and they were super fun and I made tons of memories! Like when a very large man attempted to do a backflip and landed right on top of me at the trampoline park. Good times lol. I definitely recommend going to these events at your college!
• Meeting people with different mindsets than the small town mentality that I’m used to: College is really cool because people come to college from all over the world. I ended up sharing my dorm with a Japanese foreign exchange student named Akari. She’s one of the nicest, cutest human beings I’ve ever met. It was so funny to listen to her talk about the things that she found weird about America. At the beginning of the semester I told her that I got a pet fish and she thought it was the strangest thing. She was like “we don’t keep fish as pets in Japan, we eat them.” It was really nice getting to know her and realizing that not everyone thinks like Americans do. College is awesome because you get to see so many different perspectives and mindsets on things.
• Getting all A’s in all of my classes except one: In regard to my classes, this semester was pretty hellish, so I’m pretty proud of the fact that I got mostly A’s. I had a pretty hard time keeping up with my classes for reasons that you will see in my “downs” section of this post.
• Learning about myself: A lot of people say that college is the time for discovering who you are. I’ve learned many things about myself, but the main thing that I’ve learned is that I am far more introverted than I originally thought I was. Since I was active in so many things in high school, I was so busy all of the time that I didn’t even realize that I really disliked being around people all the time. Now that I feel like I have a choice, I would honestly rather sit in my dorm than be around people when I have the choice.

Downs

• Deaths of people that were in the Honors Program with me: This semester was especially rough & saddening because we lost not only one, but two students in the Honors Program. The Honors Program is a pretty tight knit community, and the current directors have never experienced losing a student before. It was a pretty sad time for me because I knew both of them. 🙁
• Missing my dog: My dog is a huge part of my life, so leaving him to go to college was so sad. It might seem dramatic, but I was sad for a lot of the semester because I missed him so much.
• Getting my first B: I got my first B in Calculus this semester. I wanted to get an A in the course, but honestly I’m just happy that I passed. It was the hardest class I have ever taken. I’d say a B in college calc is pretty decent.
• Being homesick: I really missed my family and my room at home this semester. My college is 4 hours away from my hometown, so I don’t get to go home that often. I really missed just having my own space and having a stove to cook meals.
• Stress: I have never known a college student who enjoys stress, so of course this one would go in the downs. I hate feeling stressed, but it’s kind of inevitable in college, whether it’s about money, grades, etc.
• I got pleurisy: This was definitely one of the worst parts of my semester. Pleurisy is inflammation of the lungs and makes it so that it really hurts to breathe. Before I knew that it was pleurisy, I thought that it was my heart and I was so scared. It was so painful and it made it suck to walk around campus, sit in class, and pretty much everything else.
• I found out that I have bulging and protruding disks in my neck: Also a definite downfall to my semester. I got in a car accident this summer, which you can read more about in my post “where I’ve been.” As a result of the accident, I’ve been having a bunch of neck pain, so I got an MRI when I got home for Christmas break and found this out. Not fun!

I hope you all enjoyed this little look into my first semester of college! College is a great time in life, but that doesn’t mean that it’s all good. The main thing is to learn from both the bad and the good, and let everything be a learning experience. Some people may have a great time, whereas some people may end up having the worst time of their lives. If you were looking to get a general idea of what the first semester is like, I hope that this post gave you that!

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