Life as a Full-Time College Freshman

I'm only in my first semester of college and I was not expecting to be this busy. As a little girl I would always watch "Day in the Life" videos on YouTube of girls in college; it got me so excited. Almost all of the videos consisted of studying in the cutest places, going to so many campus activities, and having the cutest dorm rooms, and I thought I could get my college life to look exactly like that, and, honestly, I'm not far off.

Now, obviously, the girls from YouTube and I have very different aesthetics. We go to totally different colleges and have different majors and hobbies. After realizing this was when I knew I was actually living my college life the way I've always wanted to.

What it's actually like

What I thought college would be like vs.

Pick your study spot!

• Library
• Coffee Shop
• Dorm
• Outside

Taking 19 credits of classes right away was not my greatest idea, but at least I'm getting my gen-eds over with. I am currently choosing classes for next semester and I think I'll take it down a bit and go with 16 credits. My university has "Goals" that we must complete in order to graduate, and these goals consist of certain topics of classes we need to take. For example, I need to achieve 9 credits of Fine Arts & Humanities. So I have 4 years to accomplish 10 goals AND get 120 credits for my major.

With this comes a ton of studying. Luckily my campus offers many study spots. Aside from the library and coffee shops downtown, there are tables and chairs in every building and on every floor for whatever you may need, and I've been to a lot of them already but I don't think I'm even half way to trying out every spot.

Everybody has different ways they study and I like to think my way is pretty simple, and common. I like to use different colors pens for certain notes, and when it comes to assignments, it varies. Depending on the length of the assignment and the due date, determines when I do the assignment and how quick I try to get it done. I've come to realize that I have been getting a lot of assignments this semester, but that is my fault for taking 19 credits right away. I always make myself to-do lists and carry a planner with me to make sure I get everything written down and don't miss a day an assignment is due.

I would say all this work is because I am a double major, but we all know this is all mainly gen-ed classes. Don't get me wrong, being a double major is a lot of extra work and I know I would get there eventually, but I will say that I think I want to focus more on writing and might drop my second major and pick up a minor or two. I don't want to sound lazy or anything but I've just been so focused on writing recently and there are a few writing jobs out there that really interest me.

Moving on, I'm sure this is something quite a few people struggle with, including me, and this would be making friends. I've been in college for almost 2 months now and haven't made any friends, I'm beginning to think it's a me problem. Maybe it's the way I talk, or dress, or my facial expressions, and I know friends are not just going to find me, I need to talk to people, but as an introvert that is a bit difficult. As much as I want to make friends, I do enjoy being alone. I have many hobbies that I love doing, which makes my loneliness a little more, okay, I guess you could say. My classes already take up a good portion of my day and after those I have other things to do, so my time is limited already. I try to workout everyday and that is about 1.5-2 hours, then I've got homework to do, dinner to eat, a shower to take, and of course, I need some 'me' time. Something I'm keeping in my head though is to trust the process. I have 4 years of college, there's no way I won't meet anybody.

After filling you in with all the things I do in a day, let me tell you how I balance them. I haven't fully adjusted to everything yet and things are going to change every semester. For the current semester my only form of free time is in my bed right before I go to sleep; it kind of sucks but it lets me know to take less credits for next semester. I need a total of 120 credits before I graduate and with the 19 I have completed this semester I'm already ahead of the game. It's super important to balance work/school/personal life and even though some days might take more effort than others, I still try to accomplish things no matter how big or small, it always makes me feel better at the end of the day.

As I've talked about earlier, there are a few writing jobs I had in mind that I'd love to have a career in. As much as I would love to break it down into detail, I will not bore you guys with that. However, my main focus is to have a work from home job, and I hate telling people this because I fear all they think is that I'm lazy and that is not the case at all. In fact, I want a work-from-home job so I can get more things done, or possibly do what this couple is doing in the picture to the left, hence why I put it in. That is another huge important factor to my future, starting a family with the love my life, but that is a story for another time.

I hope you all enjoyed, thank you for reading!