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| Madelin Shelton ('22) |
All throughout high school, I was told that college would be some of the best years of my life. I heard that I
would thrive in college and that it would be magnitudes better than high
school. After walking across the graduation stage in June and walking into a
new chapter of my life in August, it is obvious to me that these sentiments did
not adequately prepare me for the life-altering transition of starting college.
My naïvety led me to believe that I was
prepared for my new life. I told myself that yes, the school work would be intense, but I had the drive and the determination to succeed. I would be
moving to a new place, a place completely different from my small hometown.
However, from past experiences, I never considered myself a homebody. I have
gone on three previous mission trips out of the country. Two one-week trips to
Haiti and one two-week trip to Uganda. During those times, I did not miss home.
As silly as this may seem, I saw my mission trips, especially the one in Uganda
this past summer, as a sign that I would not miss home when I moved away to
college. Roughly two weeks into the semester, I soon realized that my
preconceptions and high expectations were not living up to all that I had
imagined.
Moving to college isn’t just more
rigorous school work and a budding social life. It’s also leaving everything
one once knew behind and moving to an entirely new area. It’s about having to make new
friends from strangers and adjusting to not seeing your family every day. Many
people often say that college is great and the experiences one has will last
them a lifetime. While I agree that this can be true, and that I am adjusting
to the college life in a way that is shifting more towards this description, I
think we are doing our recent high school graduates an injustice when we don’t
describe how difficult the first semester of college can be. It can often be
filled with feelings of anxiety, loneliness, and confusion. No one warned me of the negative feelings I would incur as I went from the life
I had known for eighteen years to a brand new one. In conversations with my peers,
many of them have had similar experiences.
College is difficult enough between the
classes, extracurriculars, jobs, and preparing for a career. If we want our college freshman to succeed, we should not paint
the college experience as a bed of roses from the start. Classes become
stressful, homesickness kicks in, and sometimes all a college student wants is
the familiarity of home and to eat a home cooked meal. Telling soon-to-be college freshman of these challenging experiences would better prepare them for their transition and,
in turn, better ensure their success beyond the first semester.
Madelin Shelton of Owenton, Ky., is a member of the McConnell Scholar Class of 2022. She studies political science and philosophy at the University of Louisville.