You’ve got time

By Liv Dunleavy Staff Writer I’ll be real - I’ve been in college for a while. As a 2020 high-school graduate, I feel like I can give myself some grace. But as the semesters pass and my credits accumulate, I feel worse and worse about my place in my academic career. Going to college for the first time - during the pandemic no less - felt scary and exciting, but I don’t think I was equipped for everything that was about to be thrown at me. I was just a small fish in a big, big pond, and I don’t think I ever got acclimated to the water. My college journey started at a highly regarded private school, one of the colleges of the Fenway, a school that I felt proud to tell my family and friends I attended. I was ready to be a success story - the success story - but of course, life throws a wrench in one’s plans every once in a while. Starting college during the pandemic, in my opinion, was one of the main reasons I am where I am today. I am at my third college, Framingham State University, in a completely different major, at an age older than what one would assume a junior would or should be, and still so utterly confused about what the hell I am going to do with my life. Starting college during the pandemic meant my class struggled to meet in person. My first year was a mess of Zoom and miscommunication, a loss of motivation, and a complete rewiring of the part of my brain that processes information. All of this to say, when the school opened up the next fall for in-person classes, I didn’t know what I was in for. I did not know how to be a student. I did not know how to balance my social life with school. I didn’t even know what to do every day with my own time, and honestly I still don’t. I feel like I missed out on a lot of vital moments. I realized maybe a fancy private college was too big of a first step during COVID. I took a gap semester. Time went by. I got older. I started at a community college the next fall. Community college was an eye-opener, I felt like it gave me the space to explore my options without pressure. I was older than most incoming freshmen but I was also surrounded by transfers like me, and late comers who had the brilliant idea of not spending egregious amounts of money on schools without some sort of certainty. It felt weird - making friends with freshmen there - I wasn't so old they felt disconnected. In fact I have a lot of tendencies to act more childish so I did often get mistaken for a freshman, but it was like I was looking back at my past self making the mistakes I already have, and I could just sigh and say, “It is going to be OK.” I still feel this way now, but definitely on a larger scale. After going to college for almost five years now, I feel like those struggles I faced at my first school - time management, life balance, finding my way in this crazy world - they’ve all been overcome with time. Honestly, I freak out some days thinking about my future. I don’t know where I will be in five or 10 years. I know where I would like to be, and I can plan as much as possible. But honestly, I have spent so much time in college not knowing how it will end and I still don’t know. But I can tell you this - I don’t know your story. It might be very different from mine. It might be similar. What I can say confidently is you have time. I’ve made so many friends along my college journey - people with stories and passions and fears, people who have helped me grow and allowed me into their lives so we are able to grow by each other's side. These days, these months, these years you spend on this campus, in this big pond, or another pond, lake, or ocean - whether you see yourself as a big fish, a small fish, a frog, a lily pad, a tadpole - you are doing just fine. You have time. It is OK not to have figured it out right away.