When you look at the population of this campus, you’ll notice that our student body is from all over the country and all the over world. With representatives from over 100 countries and states like Texas, Illinois, Florida, and California, there are many students that come from so many different backgrounds. We may come from different places, but we experience similar things during our freshman year of college.
We all remember arriving on campus on move-in day ready to take on the world on your own for the first time. You walked through the doors of your room and stood there thinking, “This is my new home for the next 8 months,” whether you liked it or not. All of your stuffed was moved in and unpacked. Your parents said their last goodbyes and they headed back to the car all teary eyed knowing that their baby was about to start college and that they were all grown up. Eventually as you were sitting there in your room, it started to hit you that this was really happening whether you were ready or not.
I remember sitting in my room after I said goodbye to my mom and just thinking about everything that was happening and everything that was still yet to come. I remember feeling like I was ready to take on the daunting task of college. It was my first time being away from home, just like almost all freshman, and I feel like my experiences in the past had helped me get to the point that I was at in my life. I was ready to handle the change in the difficulty of the course work, the task of taking care of myself, and the change in competition level in track. In high school, I wouldn’t have called myself the typical student. I was a varsity athlete in 4 sports during my senior year, I was in the marching band, I was on the honor roll, I was in the honor societies, I was actively doing community service, and I still managed to graduate at the top of my class. In the summer, I worked at a local amusement park so that I could save up some money before school started just like most college kids do.
I always felt like I was ready to enter college and that I would be able to handle it. The first couple of months were definitely rough, as they would be for anyone transitioning into college no matter how prepared they really felt that they were to handle it. It was hard adjusting to going to class, then going to practice, then going back to class, then going to study hall, and somehow fit in time to eat, socialize, and do homework. Luckily I was already used to such a crazy schedule and taking care of myself to some extent, but I never realized how big of a change it was going to be for me until I experienced college for myself.
As a freshman, we all experience the same things in some way or another. The way we handle it and how prepared we are to handle it are the outcomes of our past experiences. That feeling of being completely alone and lost are common. If there’s anything that I want fellow freshman to get out of this series, is that you’re not alone and there are people that come from similar backgrounds and very different backgrounds that have experienced similar things in their life. We are in this together as freshman and it’s our job to make connections and use each other to get through these confusing times. I will be talking not only about myself, but other students that have come from different backgrounds to show the diversity within this campus in the hope that their story is similar to yours and that you see how they are handling this big change in their lives.
UAlbany Project MyStory 
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