The Truth About College

Okay, so it's day one. Your parents just dropped you off at your new (to you) dorm, and you have two car loads of various items that were conveniently located in the "College" section of Bed, Bath, and Beyond. You guys certainly went for the "beyond" part of the whole experience. Who REALLY needs a purple I-pod shower dock? But hey, you're a freshman, so what else were you going to do with all of that grad money that your relatives sent you?

Certainly not save it, that's for sure!

Fast forward through "Welcome Week" where the level of "I'm smiling this big because I'm no longer in high school" was at an all-time high and your cares were at an all-time low. You consider joining a sorority. You love that floral has basically been vomited all over everything on Greek Row. You went to your first official lecture as a college kid! Yay! You even took hand-written notes! You turned your nose up at the sophomore sitting next to you that dabbled on Facebook for the entire fifty-minutes of awesome your professor had prepared for you today! You took notes on the syllabus that was promptly handed to you, and you stuck it in that nice new binder you already pre-labeled for class.

COLLEGE IS SO FUN.

But then it's finals week, and you have spent way too few hours actually studying for your Intro to Lit final tomorrow morning and way too many hours flirting with the guy who eats lunch at the same tree that you do. So you sit down in a quiet room far, far away from your friends and TV. This is it; you're going to spend the next 7 hours studying! Look, I'm being a real college student!

And then... he texts you. Wanna grab Taco Bell?

You hate Taco Bell! You need to study! But he's just so cute!

You feel horrible about yourself the next week as you're moving out of your dorm for Christmas break. You failed Intro to Lit. How do you fail Intro to Lit? You swear off men next semester. Yes, that's it! A total no-men cleanse! What an awesome plan!

Except you totally don't swear off men at all. In fact, you get a boyfriend next semester! Cute tree guy just became cute tree boyfriend. Man, you are one lucky girl! He's president of the Recycling For Life club. Obviously, you join too. You've never recycled anything in your entire life, and sometimes you set your empty Sonic cups outside your car in the parking lot when no one is looking, but what does that even matter? You joined your first club! With your first college boyfriend!

Fast forward to finals week of fall semester your sophomore year. You can't eat. You can't sleep. You certainly can't study. Cute tree boyfriend just broke up with you. OVER TEXT. For that hipster girl from down the hall that just started the End Campus Violence movement on your campus. So now you're heartbroken, alone, and hungry. Oh, and you have a huge Business Management final tomorrow. You could suck it up and study. Or... you could run down the hall and toilet paper hipster girl's room...

So you ended up in a total, all-out hall feud with hipster girl second semester. It's really no big deal that you walked into a pile of dog crap outside your door before your 8am is it? Or that she somehow managed to lock you into your bathroom via the two way doors to your room and your suitemate's that only locks the bathroom from the outside. It's totally fine that she invites Cute Tree Ex-Boyfriend over every time she knows you're staying in for the night. Whatever, right?

You're switching halls next year anyway.

Junior year. Crazy! How did you get to be so old? Weren't you, like, just a freshman? Actually, yeah! But then you blinked, and suddenly your GPA that started at a nice 4.0 has dropped to an astonishing 2.6. Your parents are furious, your scholarships have been ripped away, and you're suddenly worried about your grad-school dreams. That's it! You're hitting the books. No more laziness. No more petty feuds. That's for underclassmen, anyway. You're going to do this.

And then right before mid-terms, you get a job! Your first job in college! You are tired of caf food and clothes that have gotten (suspiciously) too tight. You want money. So, you march right into the closest Starbucks to campus and demand they honor your excellent achievements with a job. Or... you walk in and nervously hand them your application that you spent two hours neatly filling out in black ink that you made sure not to smudge. So what if you had to blow dry the paper at certain points? You wait while the bottom-of-the-totem-pole employee delivers it to the manager on duty. The manager, scowling and oddly out of breath, tells you that you're hired and you start immediately.

COOL! Who knew getting a job would be so easy! You have no clue why people complain about getting a job!

So you got a job, and you are trying so hard to balance out school and work, but it's just so hard! You have no idea why you thought it would be a good idea to rush your sorority freshman year, but you're missing all of these events, and you haven't paid your dues in like forever, so you think you might be on probation. But that doesn't even matter because you just started talking to your cute coworker, and you're worried that he might blow you off again. His grandmother had a toe rash last weekend, so he nursed her back to health on a Saturday night like any good grandson would. What a sweetheart.

Second semester, you're totally dating. Well, kind of. He calls you every couple of weeks to see if you might want to "hangout" if his friends don't come over. You haven't actually been on a real sit-down date, but you think he might make it FBO soon, so you don't question him. Your grades are okay. C is passing, so that's good. Your professors and you have an unspoken agreement where they won't call on you if you will give them good evaluations at the end of the year. It's just easier on everyone that way. Except your crazy Am Lit professor. The woman calls on you EVERY CLASS PERIOD. Like, you actually have to study for that class; it's so stupid. On the other hand, you have learned more about Post-Civil War America than you did in your entire high school experience. You actually might make it out with an A in that class! Go you!

You decide to get an apartment for your last year of college! Your newly bestowed senior status basically requires that you take this plunge, and Pinterest the crap out of some tiny, hole-in-the-wall campus apartment! You love your roommates (for now), and you think you might get a cat! What could be better?

YOU HATE YOUR ROOMMATES! You basically live with Chuckie and his Bride. You try to spend as much time at your parents house as possible to avoid contact with these two, but you swear it's like avoiding Trump while flipping through your TV channels. You decide that the only way to survive is to move home after first semester. Only 96 days until you live with your parents again. Oh, yay.

You have really been kicking your classes' butts this semester. You have A's in nearly all of them, and life is really looking up. You ditched Starbucks guy- he had like 3 side chicks. You found cute library boy instead. He even took you out on a real date where they serve more than just beer and appetizers! And he paid! What crazy world is this?! Aside from your roommate situation, things couldn't be any better.

And then you move home.

Just when life was going great, you moved back in with your parents. You forgot that they turn all the lights off at 9:00pm, and they don't keep copious amounts of studying (junk) food laying around. They tell you that your dirty laundry piles don't bother them, but you know it does, so you feel the need to actually do your laundry on a regular basis. And workout. Your mom goes to like 5 classes at the local Y a week, which totally makes you feel like a slob in comparison. You worked out once your freshman year, right? You start going to class with her so you don't get shown up by a 50-year-old woman. But then you get to her class and realize that you're not about to get shown up; you're about to get dominated. These woman are animals!

You are wrapping up all of your classes, just waiting for Graduation like it's your end-all-be-all. You are so over school, and you're ready to make that crazy move two states over to take a job offer. You can't believe that someone actually offered you a job. You, of all people! Cute Library Boy is moving too. Except, his name is Jake. He's pretty cool.

So here you are, on Graduation Day, and you're standing in line to receive your diploma. It's actually just an empty folder, which is totally deceiving. You'd think they could actually give that piece of paper to you instead of mailing it weeks later. You are remembering all of these crazy moments from the last four years. You remember the first boy that broke your heart. You remember all the stupid fights you got into. You remember all the pranks that were pulled. You remember that teacher that actually cared if you passed or failed. You remember the sleepless nights and hours spent studying (or avoiding studying). You remember your first job, and how it felt to be a part of the "working world." You remember your first apartment. You remember failing and coming back home to mom and dad. But mostly, you remember that first day. You remember looking around your empty dorm room and thinking, "Gosh, this is it! This is college!"

But what you felt then? It's nothing to what you are feeling now. You're standing up on stage, and they read your name. They read your name, and your family stands up and applauds you. Your grandmother that never made it farther than 8th grade is beaming at you. Your mom that couldn't afford to go to college has tears in her eyes. Your father that was just 25 credits away from graduating is clapping as loud as he can, so obviously proud. You look at your support system, the people that have pushed you to be your very best. They have shaped you, and they have made you what you are at that very moment. You think of all that they wanted to achieve and all that they didn't. You think of all that you have achieved, and all that you still will.

Even though those four years dragged on so painfully slow, you still cherish them. You love it all: the good, the bad, the very bad. You are thankful for the hard times because they made you work that much harder. You cherish the good times because it was proof that the sun will eventually shine.

And you think, "Gosh, that was it. That was college."

Ding, dong, I hear graduation bells?

Well, hello there!

It's been, what, a year?

Basically, I disappeared from cyberspace. And during my extended leave of absence from this oh-so-happy writing space, what was I doing other than being perfectly, blissfully, happily engaged? Why, finishing up my senior year OF COLLEGE of course! The last nine months have been a hurricane of internships, grad applications, mega huge papers, and writing portfolios! But, as of today, I AM OFFICIALLY FINISHED!

With undergrad classes, that is...

So yes, another huge change in my life: looks like I'm going to grad school, y'all!

And not just for anything. I am going for a Masters in Library Science. That's right; I'm going to be the next hush-up or put-up librarian in a small town where my fiancé works!

Basically, I get to smell old books all day long, and I am so stinking jazzed.

I get paid to hangout with all the greats (Tennyson, Poe, Wollstonecraft) and all the up-an-comers (Ransom Riggs, Maggie Stiefvater, Rainbow Rowell)!

In any event, graduating means more time for myself. Which means more time for reading. And writing. And blogging. And writing about blogging.

Until we meet again, I'll be between the books!