An Open Letter to High School Students: What I Learned as a College Freshman.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was high school. Most every high school student can relate to this statement, and a select few might also know who and where it was adapted from.

To say that high school is difficult is an understatement. From freshman to senior year, students go through unbelievable amounts of change, both physiologically and psychologically. There are demands of running start programs, AP classes, extracurricular activities, and life in general. All of this in turn seems to point in an ultimate goal: college, the finish line of high school.

More often than not, college is thought of as an escape; a sweet utopia of being in control of your life and in some cases, not having to answer to strict teachers or parents. I fell prey to this mindset more than once throughout my years in high school, but once I began my adventure as a college freshman, I realized how wrong I had been in my anticipation.

Senioritis, sayonara, and sweet dreams.

In the months leading up to my high school graduation, I couldn’t help but count down the days until I would be handed my diploma. Time seemed to drag on even after that too, because I couldn’t wait to get to college. I had this romanticized idea of being one of those “cute” college students who always wore chic outfits, carried a Pinterest worthy binder, and had some form of caffeine in hand. I imagined taking psychology classes that showed me the wonders of the human brain, and education classes that gave me the opportunity to teach. My plan was to go to the gym every day, (even train for a half-marathon!) make lots of friends, eat healthier, and so on. Everything seemed so wonderfully achievable that I couldn’t wait to begin my new adventure. With as much excitement as when I had gotten my acceptance letter, I moved into my dorm, registered for classes, and settled in the night before the school year officially began.

So far so good… kind of.

The first few days went by quickly. I got lost a few times and had already gained a disliking for the dining hall, but I persevered in my idea having a perfect college experience because those were insignificant setbacks. I told myself ‘I could deal’. After all, college had given me the most freedom I had ever had in my life. I could be an entirely different person from who I was in my hometown and high school! Each night of my first few weeks at college, I reminded myself of this as I fell asleep.

“No one told you life was gonna be this way..”

But each morning, it got harder to wake up. My roommate and I were on different schedules. She preferred to stay up late, get a little buzzed, and FaceTime her boyfriend; I was fonder of going to bed early because I cherished sleep more than most things. There were some nights when I was grateful for the disturbance of my roommate’s chattiness because it masked the sounds of me shedding a few tears over being homesick. Other nights, I just wanted some peace and quiet because my days were getting busier as I strove to keep up with my classes, as well as my goal of being what I like to call “The Hollywood Student”. This pattern continued until November, when I moved into an apartment just a few miles from campus with the one friend I had made since classes started.

Suddenly I was thrown into a world of monthly rent, electric bills, somehow not realizing that I needed to purchase a bed until after I moved, and broken dishwashers. I had jumped into the deep end of adulthood, with no previous experience, and only my savings account to keep me afloat. It was in that moment I realized what college truly is.

So, what is it if not a walk in the park?

Freshman year not a bright and bubbly journey where you dutifully attend classes each week, get your homework done promptly, party a little on the weekends, rest up on Sunday, and repeat the whole process. Sure, you have those options, but being a college student involves so much more than just a routine, and I feel like high school students are too often mistreated when more experienced people fail to tell them that. I know in my naïve, high school mind, I imagined college to be one of two things: An opportunity to advance further academically, or simply a segue to party without having to answer to parents.

And, while both of these are correct in a sense, they are encompassed in something so much greater than I imagined, and what I think any high school student imagines as they are drudging through the humdrum of their school. College is an emotional journey, and the route is different for every single student who decides to take it. I know that my personal route was moving all the way across the country, away from a town of conservative minds and into a town of liberal ones. Though you cannot exactly tell high school graduates what their college journey will be like, you can tell them that it is the biggest part of attending a university, and that they will learn in more ways than just academically.

“That’s just your experience.”

I just want to take a few moments to embrace humility and acknowledge that the human race has subjective and objective truths. My experience is far from usual, and not everyone is going to experience the culture change and homesickness I did. There will be students who make good friends, have wonderful roommates, and actually stay on campus for a full year. Details such as those are subjective and I am not claiming to have superior knowledge about anyone’s specific college experience. What I am trying to address with this piece is the reality of the overall and objective aspect that pertains to a college education.

There is this binary associated with college that really damages students in a way I will discuss later. Right now, I want to rewind to the very beginning of this think piece and focus in on the goal of secondary education. The academic decisions, grades, extracurricular activities and more are arrows pointing to the finish line of graduation. But where did this idea of graduation being a finish line come from? And what is it that makes it wrong?

It’s not me, it’s you.

As a high school senior, you are at the top of a totem pole. You survived your freshman year, you suffered through sophomore year, and you conquered junior year slowly but surely. Now, especially as you prepare to graduate and get your first taste of the real world, you feel all this power and potential rushing through you. All of that is so true. You are quite brilliant and definitely capable. But I believe this surge of power is what confuses so many seniors as they get ready to graduate. All of the vigorous work you put in to maintain good grades or a good status is tiring, and it feels like running a marathon. Looking at this mindset, it is easy to see how graduation can become a finish line, and college can become a trophy.

Here’s the thing though: upon being handed your high school diploma and flipping your tassel, the race has only just begun. What negates the assumption that high school is a race and college is the trophy is that it’s a little premature. It took me until college to realize this, but the years I spent in high school were training for the years I will spend in college. That being said, the real analogies of high school and of college should look a little different than what I’ve mentioned.

High school is training. You can think of it as race training, sports training, dance or cheerleading training, or whatever other analogy fits the bill. Either way, it is time spent with coaches whose job is to show you how to perform to the best of your ability. College is the actual race, or performance, or game day, and on that day, you are by yourself. There is no coach standing next to you, guiding you through each step; you have to rely on your peers, and on your knowledge to excel.

To the stats now, y’all.

Remember the damage that comes from this binary that I was talking about earlier? An online article written in 2012 gives some mind-sobering statistics about the percentage of college students who have faced depression, or worse while in college. Where does this darkness come from? I know mine came from a misunderstanding of college, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned as a freshman, it’s that there is actually a significant amount of people who happen to have a similar life as you. I can guarantee you that if you walk into any classroom on any college campus and ask students if they struggled during their freshman year, the common answer — even from the professor or instructor — will be yes.

Head in the clouds, heart by the sea.

There are going to be times in college that you succeed. You will use skills from previous years to do well on a test, or handle a sticky situation. There will also be times that you don’t succeed. Your heart will sink as you face new challenges that may get the best of you. There are no ways to predict the specifics of either of these situations, but there are ways to be prepared for them.

I am currently in my last quarter as a freshman, and after two previous quarters of struggling with the English department, I finally got into an English 101 class. In it I have learned an entirely new way of writing, but some really valuable life lessons as well. A few weeks in, my instructor brought up this writing strategy that she calls “The mountain and the sea”. It is an excellent concept to use when writing, but the more I pondered it, the more I realized that it also could be used as a strategy for life as a college student.

The idea of the mountain and the sea is that while on a mountain, you can make abstract claims, look at a zoomed out view, and basically be free. When you travel down to the seaside, you get a closer look and therefore gain a more realistic view than you did on the mountain. Applying this to day-to-day life as a college student develops a few strategies for dealing with the tough journey.

First and foremost, never lose sight of the mountain, even if it might be a while before you can climb back up it. The goals I set for myself as a freshman sure weren’t idealistic on an every day basis, but from time to time, I like to remind myself of them and exchange my hoodie and jeans for a dress and curls, or make an effort to go to the gym. So do set goals, high goals, for yourself because it gives you a reason to keep your head up.

But here’s the catch for those goals: you should set them while you are at the sea (and after reading this piece, that is where I hope you are). From the sea, you can view the height of the mountain, size it up, and say, “I will climb that — one day.” This will keep your heart hopeful for the future yet grounded in the present.

My point is…

I believe it is time to stop romanticizing the idea of going to college because this sends high school graduates into the world totally unprepared for the challenges they will be forced to take on. Such unpreparedness can be damaging, not only to a student’s emotional health, but also to their success. There is honestly so much to learn as a college student, and I personally believe that learning begins before kids even graduate high school. Benjamin Franklin once said “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”, and in the same way, knowing what to expect during the first year of college will pay off by helping cope with it as it comes.