First off you need to know that your parents are freaking out right now that their babies are leaving home for the first time. \u00a0Know that this is a hard time for them so be patient and kind with your parents the next few weeks\u2026they are not trying to hold you back\u2026they just don\u2019t want to see you go\u2026love them! \u00a0(that may have been a personal plea to my own kids \ud83d\ude42 ).<\/p>\n
Next I will say that freshman year in college had to be the most fun year of life so get excited because this is going to be awesome!\u00a0 This upcoming year of your life is going to be amazing. You will grow so much as a person this year it will blow your mind.\u00a0 You will make incredible new friends this year, many of which will last a lifetime.\u00a0 You will fall in and out of love (or what you think is love) a million times this year\u2026embrace it!\u00a0 This year is the start of your adult life\u2026OWN IT!<\/p>\n
Now here are just a few words of advice that I would have given to myself if I could have let my current self who has learned many life lessons, talk to my past self the year I was starting college:<\/p>\n
College is not high school.\u00a0 There are no cliques of the cool kids and the jocks and the nerds.\u00a0 College is not like that. And no one in college could care less about how cool or uncool you were back in high school.\u00a0 It means absolutely nothing as you enter college. \u00a0In college you don\u2019t have to fit into a defined box. You don\u2019t have to be just one thing. You can be everything and anything you want.\u00a0 Remember that.<\/p>\n
Know that college is about tons and tons of young adults all on their own for the first time.\u00a0 They are all scared to death and excited at the same time.\u00a0 Everyone is hoping to find friends and find their classroom, you are all in the very same boat.\u00a0 You can be friends with everyone and anyone. Don\u2019t limit yourself.\u00a0 Make as many friends as possible.\u00a0 Don\u2019t be shy to talk to people you don\u2019t know. \u00a0Remember that they are as scared as you are and they will be grateful to have anyone say hello to them, so don\u2019t hold back, talk to everyone.<\/p>\n
Treat school like it\u2019s your job.\u00a0 \u00a0Show up on time. Be Accountable.\u00a0 Work Hard.\u00a0 Turn your work in on time.\u00a0 Make sure when you do your homework that you do it so well that you can feel proud to put your name on it, because your name WILL be on it!<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you are not willing to learn, no one can help you.\u00a0 If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n You need to set rules for yourself in advance that will force yourself to balance your time each day.\u00a0 There will be something fun going on at all times and in all places in college. There is always a million parties and a million get togethers and when you first get to college you start to panic that you don\u2019t want to miss out on a single event.\u00a0 But you can\u2019t look at it like that or you will be out playing 24×7 and you will fail out of school.\u00a0 You seriously have to discipline yourself into setting aside study time, and time to do your homework, and you have to get yourself to bed at a reasonable time.\u00a0 I think this principle is the very hardest to achieve your freshman year.\u00a0 What you need to know is that you don\u2019t have to show up to every party and every event.\u00a0 You couldn\u2019t if you wanted to.\u00a0 And you are not going to miss out on \u201ceverything\u201d by not going.\u00a0 Remind yourself that there will be another fun event tomorrow and the next day and the next day and you can go to one of those when you finish your work first.\u00a0 \u00a0If you screw up your grades freshman year it will pull down your GPA for the rest of college. It is not worth that.\u00a0 So set rules for yourself regarding study time, set a curfew for what time you will get to bed each night, set rules around homework getting done before play starts.\u00a0 You are an adult now and you are going to have to police yourself, but decide in advance what your rules will be because once you start college you will slip into bad habits immediately if you don\u2019t already have your rules in place.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t stress yourself out about picking a major.\u00a0 It\u2019s okay to start college unsure of what you want to do for your career.\u00a0 Deciding what you want to do for the rest of your life is a really big deal, so don\u2019t rush yourself that first year.\u00a0 What\u2019s important is to decide the general direction you want to head and then start down that path. If you find you don\u2019t like it then switch it sooner than later.\u00a0 Part of freshman year is getting exposure to a lot of different fields so you can see which one you gravitate toward.\u00a0 I think one great idea is to start a list of what you see as your God given talents and abilities.\u00a0 Then add to that list the things you love to do, the things that make you happiest.\u00a0 As you put that list together you may start to see patterns of where you will naturally excel in life and that can go a long way toward helping you figure out what major to pursue.<\/p>\n \u201cThe beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you.\u201d<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 -BB King<\/p>\n This year is not just about your education. It is about building your character.\u00a0 Yes you will learn in the classroom, but you will also learn from the life experiences you go through this year.\u00a0 This year is the year you make all your decisions yourself with no parents babysitting your choices.\u00a0 You get to own your choices, but with that comes the fact that you and you alone have to bear the consequences of those choices.\u00a0 Your agency is 100% yours so use it wisely.\u00a0 Make good choices.\u00a0 Do the right thing even when its hard. \u00a0Learn everything you can because the knowledge you gain will be with you forever. And most of all, value this experience because it will never happen again. \u00a0Enjoy it!<\/p>\n \u201cEducation is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world.\u201d<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0 Nelson Mandela<\/p>\n ~Amy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" First off you need to know that your parents are freaking out right now that their babies are leaving home for the first time. \u00a0Know that this is a hard time for them so be patient and kind with your parents the next few weeks\u2026they are not trying to hold you back\u2026they just don\u2019t want […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3641,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[738,2334,4723,387,222,101,251,69,599,253,155,4406,4718,1145,1195,726,179,97,555,1100,4722,113,2015,93,4716,4719,4717,189,244,463,3897,598,3584,216,4025,233,4228,4715,1695,3065,529,4724,24,4466,3375,2559,2018,161,1930,1814,4720,3704,28,4721,54,3360,250,2744,4714],"class_list":["post-4871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-abilities","tag-accountable","tag-advance","tag-advice","tag-agency","tag-ashley","tag-balance","tag-byu","tag-career","tag-change-the-world","tag-character","tag-classroom","tag-cliques","tag-college","tag-consequence","tag-consequences","tag-dalton","tag-decisions","tag-direction","tag-discipline","tag-do-a-good-job","tag-education","tag-events","tag-fear","tag-freshman","tag-freshman-year","tag-freshman-year-of-college","tag-friends","tag-grateful","tag-home","tag-homework","tag-job","tag-kids","tag-kind","tag-label","tag-learn","tag-leave-home","tag-leaving-home","tag-lifetime","tag-limit","tag-loving","tag-major","tag-memories","tag-nelson-mandela","tag-panic","tag-parents","tag-parties","tag-party","tag-patient","tag-rules","tag-scaredf","tag-shy","tag-talents","tag-talk-to-people","tag-time-management","tag-university","tag-work","tag-work-hard","tag-young-adults"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4871"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4873,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4871\/revisions\/4873"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}