Freshman Year of College

Freshman Year of College

Overall, my freshman year was a very fun experience for me. I lived in the dorms, but after the first month I came "home" every weekend. I say "home" because I would say that I have about three places that I would consider home; my mom's house, my dad's house, and my boyfriend's house, when I was at one of those "homes" I would then refer to my dorm as home as well.

My mom required that I stay on campus the first two weekends because my college, Viterbo University, in La Crosse, Wisconsin had activities planned for us freshmen. That weekend I met some pretty cool people, and ended up talking to a couple of them again. Looking back at pictures of that first weekend, I realized that I had spent one of the days with two girls from my floor and didn't even know it. Being in the dorms allowed me to form strong friendships and meet new people, and I'm very glad that my mom pushed me to live on campus.

Freshman year was full of success for me. I made the Dean's List first semester, and I think I missed making the Dean's List second semester by 0.1 on my GPA. I built a firm foundation and was able to achieve a GPA of roughly 3.6. Second semester was considerably harder than first as I ended up taking some of the tougher teachers, but I feel that those teachers challenged me to be a better student. My advice to incoming freshman: take the harder instructors, but don't take them first semester. Ease yourself into college, then take on the tougher tasks.

While academically I did just fine, my living situation was another story. It's not that my roommate and I didn't get along, it was that her hours of studying did not go well with mine. Our class schedules were somewhat similar, but I was studying between and after classes, some days getting up as early as 7:30am and trying to be in bed by 10:00pm. My roommate, on the other hand, found her ideal hours of study to be between 8:00pm and 2:00am. This was a real struggle for me as I'm not a confrontational kind of person and tried to fall asleep with the light on most nights. It was really frustrating, and after trying to switch roommates and being told I couldn't until my current situation became "hostile" I tried to be out of my room as much as possible. That really helped me get out and meet new people, which I enjoyed very much. With two weeks of classes left; however, I began just shutting off the lights without saying anything. My roommate and I didn't talk much, and I decided that I would be living off campus for finals week. First semester of finals week, I came back on Monday and found my roommate frantically getting ready for her final, explaining that she hadn't taken her garbage out because she had been studying so much and pulling all-nighters. I didn't want to deal with that again, so the Sunday before finals I went to campus with my boyfriend and cleaned out my room. The Tuesday of finals week I met with my RA and got checked out of my room.

Despite the conflicts with my roommate, I really enjoyed college as a whole and cannot wait to go back next year to continue my dream of becoming a nurse.

If you have any questions about college, leave them in the comments and I will get back to you!
Look forward to a "Do's and Don'ts for College Freshmen" post within the next month!!

First Post

This is my first blog, and it's something I've been thinking about doing for awhile. College started last fall and I was tossing around the idea of starting a blog, but then I began running out of time to fit extra things in. However, my freshman year of college has been done for a couple of weeks now, and other than my nursing assistant class Monday - Thursday 4-10pm, my days are pretty empty.

This entry is pretty brief and plain, but my next few will explain other topics. One will be on my freshman year of college and how I survived, relationships and how I survived a hard break-up after almost three years, and was able to move on, my love of photography, my brief fitness journey, and my crazy, busy life!