Imagine you’re a Wake Forest freshman, and your parents just drove away after they moved you into your tiny Collins Residence Hall dorm. A dorm that has been deemed “the freshman kiss of death” by the @barstoolwakeforest Instagram account. While fighting the pressure behind your eyes, you look down at your phone and see you have 10 minutes before you have to meet with your pre-orientation group. 

Never have you ever said your name so many times or done so many different ice breaker activities. Believe it or not, starting the next four years of your life is simultaneously exciting and nerve wracking –– but it starts with an overwhelming amount of the latter.

No one talks about how the first month of freshman year is awful. I went into freshman year with great expectations and quickly found out college is very different than what I imagined. For some reason, I thought I would make lifelong friends in the first week, ace all of my classes and think college was the best thing ever. 

I didn’t. 

News flash no. 1: Expectation is a freshman’s greatest enemy

The first month of freshman year was a roller coaster of the highest highs and lowest lows. One moment, I felt on top of the world and was thriving with the new freedom of being a college student. The next moment, I felt alone, hopeless and lost. 

Orientation was very uncomfortable. During the “Res-Hall Crawl” — also known as the mob in front of Collins — I met what felt like a thousand new people and engaged in awkward small talk for more than two hours. After I gave my name, residence hall and major, an excruciating hush would fall over the mob. I had never resonated with the Taylor Swift lyric, “I’ve never heard silence quite this loud,” more in my life. 

I didn’t expect this level of anxiety, and it felt like I was the only one feeling this way. 

Orientation week drained my social battery, and I felt like I couldn’t give myself a second to recharge. Today, I absolutely adore my roommate, but in the first week, we still were getting to know each other. I felt pressure to make small talk whenever we were both awake in the room. I felt guilty any time I wanted some alone time and felt like I couldn’t just take a break in my dorm because I was going to miss out on the “college experience”. 

By the time I got to my senior year in high school, I was secure in who I was socially and academically. That vanished overnight at college. All of a sudden, I was overthinking every conversation and felt academically inferior when I was expecting a quicker feeling of normalcy and security. Thus, when the social success I expected failed, I looked toward the start of classes, hoping they would be my actual first step of settling into college. All of high school I romanticized the idea of being a pre-med student and studying in the library –– I was quickly humbled.

News flash no. 2: I’m having an academic identity crisis

After going over the syllabus in my 8 a.m. class the first day of school, my professor got right into the lecture. It seemed like he was talking at the speed of light, and I felt like I was already behind five minutes into my first college lecture. I started to spiral. 

Was I smart enough for this school? Did I choose the right school? In high school, I was a straight-A student and in the top 10% of my class… but so was every other Wake Forest student. 

I started to think something was wrong with me for not thinking college was the best time of my life. Everyone else seemed to know how to navigate college. Why couldn’t I figure it all out?

To sum up the beginning of freshman year, I was homesick, friendless and felt stupid. My stress levels were so high I could not think logically. By the second day of classes, I thought nothing would get better and that I needed to transfer schools. Looking back, I may have exaggerated a bit. Okay… I exaggerated a lot. 

Handling change is not exactly my strong suit. Everyone told me to stay positive. My parents and upperclassmen friends said things would get better and that they went through the same thing. An upperclassmen friend of mine reassured me that by the time summer break came, I would be sad to leave college and my friends for three months. 

It was hard to believe… and then things started to change. 

News flash no. 3: Everything gets better 

As each week passed, certain aspects of my life started to improve. 

Once I adjusted to my class schedule and developed a study routine, my classes started to feel easier. When walking across Hearn Plaza, I waved to friends I made in class and would meet friends in the Pit for lunch. Football games, which used to be a source of social anxiety, became a source of smiles, cheers and screams for a school I was starting to love. Having small talk with other first-years turned into having real and comfortable conversations with friends. My roommate and I began to feel okay sitting with each other in silence. 

I started to feel like I was getting a hang of college. I started to feel like I belonged. 

The first month of freshman year was confusing and hard. It felt like I was the only one struggling to adjust to college. The truth is everyone struggles with college at one point or another. It can be after the first day, after the first week or even after the first month. It might take you longer to adjust than your friends and peers. No one wants to admit that they are struggling because we have convinced ourselves we are the only ones having a hard time. 

We should not expect ourselves to seamlessly transition into living in a new city, creating new social circles and a challenging academic environment. Now that I feel settled into college, it is easy to forget how terrible I felt during that time. However, that feeling is normal.

After speaking with friends about their transition to college, they described the same pit in their stomach that I had. College is hard one way or another for everyone, but it eventually gets easier. 

So yes, freshman year sucks… but only at the beginning –– don’t give up.