There may not be a more challenging and exciting time of personal growth than your first year at college!!! Your first year away at college comes with an entire spectrum of experiences. Whether its meeting new people, figuring out time management, or simply just trying to figure yourself out. It is during this time in your life that you create new experiences and find out things you never understood before. Hopefully, this journey will help mold you into a better, more knowledgeable person in the future!

Finding/ Making New Friends The first year of university is a year full personal growth and challenges. One major concern for most incoming students is the process of making friends. This is understandable because most students see the university as very intimidating Although it may seem this way, once you follow the following advice making friends will be the least of your concerns. One of first things you can do to make friends is use social media platforms including Facebook and Groupme to learn more about your peers. Most students join university Facebook pages and Groupme group chats to find roommates and meet new people with common interests. By doing this students will not only be able to get a better sense of the university they are attending but they may also make friends before even stepping foot on campus. Another way to make friends at school is by joining clubs that interest you. In doing this, you can find common ground with people, eventually becoming friends outside of the club. Finally one of the ways to solidify friendships in college is becoming friends with your roommate. In doing this, you will always have a friend to come back to to at the end of the day. Being friends with your roommate can help bring stability to your hectic college life.

Being Far From Home Being far from home in any instance will always be something to adjust to. For many people, going away to college and being away from their parents ends up being one of the main problems. Not having your mother or father around to help you, guide you, and even remind you of things is what challenges most students. This adjustment either makes or breaks an incoming college student, but on the other hand this series of events helps you become a better, more well rounded adult. What you can do if you're struggling is talk to an older college student who has possibly had the same experience and see what they did to overcome it. On top of this, you have the issue of possibly getting homesick. Being homesick is a normal feeling when going through the college process and being far away from home. For this, you can try and schedule a weekly or even daily time where you are able to call or video call your family and loved ones. Being away from home and not having that sense of security around you will force you and challenge you to become a better student, and eventually, more efficient later in life.

Time Management A huge eye opener for many incoming college students is when they realize that time management is everything! This is another obstacle that challenges you more than any other time in your life. It will be the first time you really have to focus and plan things out ahead of time to be the most efficient version of yourself. Many people start to fall to this and go down hill, what can help you with this is to plan out your days and your week. Writing everything out will help you see everything that has importance and then you can decide what has more of a priority and what comes first. Things in college are completely different in high school, so making sure everything gets done on time is crucial and a challenge. Another characteristic that you should get the hang of is multitasking, so that in the future you are able to “kill one bird with two stones” in a sense, where you can be able to get more things done and have more time to get something else completed. Time management can make college the most challenging and exciting time of personal growth.

College has become a major experience full of excitement and challenges, it is no doubt a huge period of reflection. You grow more as a student and more importantly as a person. Figuring out time management, being away from home, and trying to make new friends is a couple of many things that make this process difficult, but hopefully by the end you will be a more well rounded student.