Freshman Year Reflection, written late summer 2014
This year was a year of transition and change. I moved halfway across the country and dealt with newfound freedom and responsibility. Overall, it wasn't a hard transition for me. I adjusted my academic habits slightly when needed, and fared well. I didn't go crazy with power and stay out all night making decisions I would later regret, laughing at how I didn't have to text my parents where I was and who I was with and when I was coming home. I didn't "reinvent" myself, though I didn't really feel I needed to. Or at least, I didn't want to.
I'm going to be honest: if the next three years are anything like freshman year, I'll be disappointed. I had a lot of fun freshman year exploring Seattle, I met great people, and I fell in love with UW and the Honors Program, and it's these things that make me excited for sophomore year. Maybe freshman year just wasn't what I expected-- I had this picture of me in my dorm room, headphones in, listening to music, lounging in my bed, and being at peace and comfortable with myself. It was a romanticized idea of college that never really came true, no matter how realistic it seemed to be. Don't get me wrong: I never once thought about transferring (except for a minor "BUT IF I WENT TO SCHOOL IN MINNESOTA I WOULD BE CLOSER TO MY CATS" incident mid-Winter quarter). I never once regretted my decision to go to UW. I just feel like freshman year let me down, perhaps due to my idealistic (but not so realistic) expectations. For reasons I don't really feel like divulging here, the first half of 2014 was extremely hard on me and my family, and at times I really didn't feel like myself. Not that I was doing things that were un-Natalie-like, I just felt really disconnected. Maybe it was the academic rigor and pressure Winter quarter brought, the cold weather and general Seattle dreariness, or just the fact that I was still transitioning from High School Natalie to College Natalie, which wasn't the biggest transition, but was a transition to be made nonetheless. I wrote a lot of bad poetry and pretended I was saying something that needed to be said. Maybe it did, and maybe saying it helped. But in retrospect, I just wrote a lot of bad poetry. Spring quarter I hardly wrote any poetry at all (save those in The Triggering Town class, which undoubtedly count, but unprompted and unassigned poetry is always better in my book). I'm still not sure which is worse, seeing as I'm writing this in early September (you call it procrastination, I call it time for reflection) and haven't written much poetry all summer but feel much better than I did in Winter quarter.
Point is, freshman year is over. I handed my dorm keys in with the biggest sigh of relief I've ever experienced in my entire life and headed off to Bellingham with two people who contributed immensely to freshman year's good parts, then jetted to Minnesota to be reunited with cats, family, and friends. As sophomore year draws closer, I can only hope I've made the shift from "overly idealistic freshman" to "mostly realistic with an earned dash of idealistic sophomore" and can approach this year with the enthusiasm it calls for. I have a better idea of what is going to make me happy whilst at college, what will keep me balanced, and what will make this coming year better than the one before it.
I'm going to be honest: if the next three years are anything like freshman year, I'll be disappointed. I had a lot of fun freshman year exploring Seattle, I met great people, and I fell in love with UW and the Honors Program, and it's these things that make me excited for sophomore year. Maybe freshman year just wasn't what I expected-- I had this picture of me in my dorm room, headphones in, listening to music, lounging in my bed, and being at peace and comfortable with myself. It was a romanticized idea of college that never really came true, no matter how realistic it seemed to be. Don't get me wrong: I never once thought about transferring (except for a minor "BUT IF I WENT TO SCHOOL IN MINNESOTA I WOULD BE CLOSER TO MY CATS" incident mid-Winter quarter). I never once regretted my decision to go to UW. I just feel like freshman year let me down, perhaps due to my idealistic (but not so realistic) expectations. For reasons I don't really feel like divulging here, the first half of 2014 was extremely hard on me and my family, and at times I really didn't feel like myself. Not that I was doing things that were un-Natalie-like, I just felt really disconnected. Maybe it was the academic rigor and pressure Winter quarter brought, the cold weather and general Seattle dreariness, or just the fact that I was still transitioning from High School Natalie to College Natalie, which wasn't the biggest transition, but was a transition to be made nonetheless. I wrote a lot of bad poetry and pretended I was saying something that needed to be said. Maybe it did, and maybe saying it helped. But in retrospect, I just wrote a lot of bad poetry. Spring quarter I hardly wrote any poetry at all (save those in The Triggering Town class, which undoubtedly count, but unprompted and unassigned poetry is always better in my book). I'm still not sure which is worse, seeing as I'm writing this in early September (you call it procrastination, I call it time for reflection) and haven't written much poetry all summer but feel much better than I did in Winter quarter.
Point is, freshman year is over. I handed my dorm keys in with the biggest sigh of relief I've ever experienced in my entire life and headed off to Bellingham with two people who contributed immensely to freshman year's good parts, then jetted to Minnesota to be reunited with cats, family, and friends. As sophomore year draws closer, I can only hope I've made the shift from "overly idealistic freshman" to "mostly realistic with an earned dash of idealistic sophomore" and can approach this year with the enthusiasm it calls for. I have a better idea of what is going to make me happy whilst at college, what will keep me balanced, and what will make this coming year better than the one before it.