Anxious first week of classes (blog post #4)
Sarah’s first week of classes just started and I can’t help but notice how similar our experiences were. While she’s more on the talkative side, In her French class she notices that everyone is slightly more in the know than she is. My first week of classes I had this exact same feeling, sometimes I still do.
She also has a bigger work load and it seems to stress her out. If I had a penny for every time I got stressed out by school work, I’d be rich. But she has friends that make it just a bit easier for her and that’s what I love so much about college. You can be losing your mind over school and someone will be right there for you cause chances are, they’re losing their mind too.
She talks to her mom about how she feels like she doesn’t have the time to do anything but write papers and draw, and I can completely relate to that. If I’m not at work, stressing about what’s going on there that night, I’m in my dorm worried about everything that’s due. That’s what also brings more problems to me. I’m trying to work and stay afloat and do school at the same time. Maybe I just need to get better at time management. Or get a better sleep schedule. Most of my week is going to classes and as soon as I’m done for the day, I go to work. Sometimes I dont get home until 10:30-11ish area, and it feels like it leaves me no time to do anything, especially not before assignments are due.
Sarah talks about how she had such an optimistic outlook for beginning college but now she’s always just worried and anxious. I don’t think I’ve heard anything more true than that. I was so excited to start college, I thought that when everyone told me that college is a little difficult and trying that I would easily find my way around that. But now I’m starting to believe that while it is possible, it just takes time.
In your blog post comparing the first weeks of Sarah’s classes to their own, they found the experiences quite similar, and I would have to agree. You both feel that others in your classes are more up-to-speed and intelligent, but from what I’ve learned after talking to people in my classes, most people are just as lost. I think this involves another point you bring up: it takes time to adjust to college. I believe most people are unprepared for exactly what college is like. We all make up these stories that just because others found it difficult doesn’t mean it will happen to us, but it often does.
My experience aligns more with Sarah’s than yours, in which Sarah calls her mom and tells her how she’s doing so far in college. I have called my mom to share my experiences and tell her how I sometimes struggle to stay on top of my work and uplift my mood. She has been accommodating, as she reassures me, so I suggest you find someone you trust and tell them how you feel about school.
Time management and sleep are two things you bring up that I also need to improve on. I have always needed better time management and pushed things back to the latest day. I told myself that I would do better in college, and so far, I have been, but I still have a long way to go. My sleep schedule is more challenging to fix as I have been going to bed late. In my roommate survey, I said I was a night person, so I have a roommate who sleeps late. I have a sleeping mask and noise-canceling earbuds, so I can fall asleep early if I want to, but most nights, I am up late with work.
Everyone in college experiences some sort of stress, so it makes sense we both feel stressed. Having friends to struggle with makes the struggle more enjoyable.
Hi Kaylie!
I really enjoyed reading your post and getting to learn about your first week of classes. While reading it, I was able to relate to the ways in which you connected with Sarah’s experiences.
I have also experienced a good amount of stress over my workload and staying on top of all of it. However, I have met so many amazing people as well who have helped me with this stress and remind me to give my mind a break. I think this is the best part of college. As much as we might struggle and feel as if everyone is doing so much better than us, we come to realize that we are all struggling. Overall, we are all just doing our best to make it through this new chapter of our life.
I have come to realize that the hardest part of college is definitely learning time management. Even if you have already learned the skill of managing time, being thrown into a new environment can completely throw it off. It is hard to do everything you need to get done within a day and still somehow have time for yourself, so you do not continue to lose your mind. However, I am confident that by the end of the year you will have figured out the best time management plan for yourself, allowing for less stress and hopefully more sleep as well!
I also can totally relate to Sarah saying that despite her optimistic outlook for college, she has only felt worried and anxious. I am someone who already worries about so much, and that has only increased since being in college. I think that these feelings make it a million times more difficult to have an optimistic outlook, especially when it is mostly all that you feel. Hopefully soon the things that we are feeling are more positive than negative and allow us to have a more optimistic mindset as hoped for.
I hope that you start to feel better about college within the next few weeks and begin to figure out how to stay on top of everything without so much stress. It definitely will not be easy and will absolutely take some time but know that you are so capable of accomplishing it all! I wish you the best of luck in the rest of the semester and hope you come out of it with more good feelings than bad.
Kindest regards,
Molly Layne