You Can Make It

We’ll stray away from theatre for a moment to take a heart to heart look at my first year experience at college. Most people write about these problems, because, at some point, every one who went to college was a freshman, and no matter how many buzzfeed or odyssey posts you read, no one had the same experience. Not everyone was happy. Not everyone found their place. They will never tell you about the students that left due to stress. They will never tell you about the students who had no friends, and who were miserable all year. Who had mental breakdowns because already in the middle of their first semester they were afraid to continue where they were. What if they love something else more?
            I stuck it through, though I did consider all of those options. I was stressed, but not from the amount of work I had. I’ve always prided myself on my time management skills. And for all those in high school who told you they were giving you hours of work to prepare for college: they were wrong. What they don’t tell you in high school is that you only have class for 2 and a half hours a week, the rest of the time you would normally spend in class in high school they devote to homework. College has massive amounts of free time. The trick is to take the responsibility to use that time wisely.
            One struggle I had personally was making friends. I was not the typical college student who gets away from their parents and goes around to party after party because they simply can. While I don’t have a problem with those who do go to party, I never went. I felt and still feel ridiculously uncomfortable around drunk people, and weed gives me headaches. I refused to go to parties because I was afraid to get caught. It was hard to make friends.
            Eventually, through residential life and classes, I found my group. My friends were sober. We watched movies over the weekend, we went to meals together and we played video games. On Thursday nights at 9 when people were getting ready to go out, we were cozying up in our pj’s about the go to bed for our 8 am classes.
            On the topic of friends, as the year went on, I learned that the friends I made first semester, while still great friends, would not be my best friends forever. I like to now call them my “emergency” friends. I love them all still, the day we moved out we all were thinking about how weird the future would be. They were the friends in my building. The first people I made a connection with. They lived across the hall or upstairs and we spent many hours together. But as the year went on, we made friends in other places. When I started assistant stage managing, I inched closer to friends in my department. I got to know them better and began gravitating towards them. They are now my closest friend and I spend most of my time with them, but there will be a place forever in my heart for my first semester friends. I even have friends that I refer to as my "family." They are my college parents, they take care of me even if they do not like to admit it, because being away from my actual parents was hard. They were the closest thing.
            The final struggle I faced was not knowing myself. I was afraid that I was not making the right decision in field. I was afraid that living at college was not right for me. I thought I was the only one. But those friends I was just talking about, they had the same problems. We all came from far away and had trouble making friends, we never drank the first year and we debated on leaving. We were not sure if theatre was the best thing for us.
            Though they’re going into their final year, and I’ve completed my first, and we’ve made it this far. You can too. It’s okay to feel out of place, and it is normal.
            You can make it.