The Freshman Experience: Getting Ready to Go

In a little under two weeks, I am going to college. Between the time I received Wellesley’s acceptance envelope and this very moment, I seemed to go through two basic emotions: excitement and terror. Excitement for the obvious reasons—no more telling my parents of my every location, no more taking classes just to make my college application look good, and no more dealing with the social drama of public high school, especially being around fourteen-year-old freshmen who think they know it all.

But wait.

Now it’s my turn to regress back to being a freshman, to leave the comfort of seniority to once again be pushed into a world where I am at the bottom of the ranks. This drop in status happened in middle school. It happened in high school. And I have no doubt it will happen in college.

This leads me to my second gut reaction, the one I feel when I look at the pile of information I received all summer from my college or think about how short two weeks can go by: in short, terror. What kind of girl has any second thoughts against leaving her childhood home and gaining some of that freedom she craved for eighteen years? Why are even the little tasks, like deciding which comforter to pick or whether I should buy a fridge scaring me? Because this is change. I am freaking out when I look at all the options. Options have never been so plentiful. It took me days to pick a laptop. What will happen when I need to choose classes? Or a major?

I have heard it all when it comes to reassurance: everyone is in the same boat, these years will be some of the best, and soon you’ll be repeating this advice to another nervous freshman. I know this is true, but it doesn’t keep me from being petrified of the first few weeks of college.

The root of both my excitement and terror is the idea that no one knows me. Which means I can be anyone I want. I don’t have to be the Kristine from my hometown, but rather could become an entirely new person. In reality, though, I know I will be the same, and I just hope fitting in will click. I will change in the next four years just as I did in the last, but I know this transition will be more permanent.

Yes, I am terrified to be thrown into a new social whirl, to balance my freedom and accountability, and to admit that I really have no idea what I am doing. But I also am excited to face this change, and I hope that enthusiasm overrides the nerves.

[Photo courtesy of Amys.com/journal]