Reflecting on change and growth after your first year of undergrad

I finished my first year of college at Central Michigan University with the same feelings and surrounded by the same environment that I arrived with; an empty dorm room, bittersweet emotions, and more stuff than I know what to do with.

Aside from returning home to a mother who is happy to have her girl in a house full of boys, I found a full, yet unseemingly bare bedroom I no longer consistently occupy. Nothing had changed too much, but at the same time it felt like everything was different.

I’ll be honest, being home and with my family is wonderful, but I couldn’t help but feel a sense of imposter syndrome sitting in what you can now call my childhood bedroom. Time stood still, but I had grown and experienced a whole different life apart from home. I felt like I didn’t fit.

Upon this realization, I made a small list of realizations and feelings (which I recently learned are valid) that I now feel like I am qualified to say, following your first year of undergrad to help put the imposter syndrome at bay.

Your parents will be your best friends

Yes, I understand that this may not be the same for everyone, but I feel like this is true for most people after being apart from your support system for months on end.

Many of my friends don’t live around the corner and eventually, I lost touch with those high school friends, so when you really think about it, my parents are what I have as a source of entertainment and friendship back home.

I joke with my mom all the time that while I am home the only people I talk to on a daily basis are her and my boyfriend. I will also occasionally admit that I like it better that way sometimes.

Remember you are going back

This one is tough. During the first year, I did a lot of exploring and figuring things out and when I felt like I had finally figured it out, it’s time to leave. When it’s over it truly felt like it was all being stripped away from me, but I realized after a while, it’s not.

Summer is shorter than I thought and when I go back things will be the same, but hopefully better! This time around I don’t have to do as much exploring and figuring things out, I truly get to just live and go to class (please go to class).

Make that money

I definitely spent a lot more money than I planned on or even thought I would. Summer, I realized, is the time to get a job, work almost too many hours and make money so you don’t feel quite as broke as the typical college student when you go back. It has been keeping me busy in a time where I don’t know what to do with myself.

Call your friends

It was easy for me to constantly complain to my mom about how bored and alone I felt, but even though my good friends from school are farther away, a phone call gave me that sense of stability that I needed.

As cheesy as it sounds, absence does make the heart grow fonder and makes me more appreciative of the great friends that I have. It makes me more eager to see them and have something to look forward to when coming back up to school. I can’t even imagine my life without them now after having them in it for such a short period of time.

Your house will always be your home even if you don’t live in it

This is what my mom has told me when I had anxious feelings of being at home after a huge change in my life.

The realization that your senior year of high school is more than likely the last year in your house as a permanent resident is a scary feeling when you have such an amazing life at home.

Just because I am growing into my own person and creating my own life doesn’t mean that I don’t have a comforting place to come back to when I need it. Material things in my room won’t grow with me, but new memories can be made in old spaces as I grow into the more mature person I am slowly becoming.