This is probably too personal for the likes of an internet forum, but to tell you the truth I don’t have anyone else to confide this with. Actually that is one of the very reasons that I don’t like it here. Let me make this a bit clearer as I feel like I’ve started off on the wrong foot.
I left home this fall and went off to a pretty well known and renowned college. I had spent my first year at an “average” four year college – you know the type that most everyone gets into as long as they have a pulse and some money. Well, that isn’t quite fair, earning a degree from this “average” college is a thing to be proud of in its particular city, but doesn’t hold much sway elsewhere. Anyhow, I got a 4.0 there my freshman year and started getting the notion that I was kind of “too good to be here”. So, I decided to leave my old comfortable college, with my old high school (most of them junior high…) friends, and my comfortable couch spot at home. I decided to leave my comfortable workout regime, along with my good friend who had challenged me in this area. I decided to leave my hang outs that I had grown so used to – the old movie theater where I had my first date; the bowling alley where I literally went four times a week for an entire summer; etc. Do you see where I’m going here?
I had taken all of this for granted and waved goodbye to it for a name – the name of my current prestigious university. One of the sad things is that I didn’t even realize it until I got here. I was and am miserable here. I have made a lot of friends, but they really aren’t the friends that you can talk to. We do things like party, joke, talk about chicks, play poker. I mean I would never even dream about calling one of these guys up to talk about some troubling issue I have. I couldn’t talk to them about family issues, or open up to them in any way like I could with my old friends – the one’s I’ve known since we were 12. I had a place there – I felt smart and athletic – if they had some school work they were hazy on, I was the guy. If they were getting a football game together – they’d call me up. When one of my friends has some trouble with his mother-in-law – we’d sit down on my porch at 1:00 in the morning and he would smoke about 10 cigarettes until the troubles were more resolved.
I felt like I was needed there and that success was kind of “guaranteed.” I was going to graduate from that average college, I was going to help my friends out, I was going to get the body I want. I mean, I could see where I would be in 3-5 years. I try to tell myself that I’m not homesick here, but I am. I sit up late at night in my dorm room, unable to watch television because of an arranged time to turn it off with my roommate, and I feel an incredible loneliness.
On the other side, I am doing well in the prestigious university. My grades aren’t bad, I’ve met a lot of new people, and I feel more sociable than ever. But I feel like the person I am becoming is the person that this school wants me to be and not the same as the person I’ve been all my life. I unanimous here, like that smart and athletic boy is now just a college boy in a hoodie blending in, hah. Sometimes I feel like this might just be a phase. I remember how miserable high school was in the beginning when you try and find yourself a niche. By your junior year of high school you find out that niches are all bull**** and you finally start liking yourself.
Basically I am trying to explain these thoughts that plague me all day to someone, and I thank you if you have read this far. Something inside of me keeps telling me to leave – go back to your comfortable life, with its safety. Then I fear the regret I would have to leave this prestigious university. My god, how would I explain it to my folks!? What if I’m just adjusting, and I “jump the gun” so to speak on leaving? I mean, I shouldn’t really be miserable here, I have friends and parties, pretty girls to look at. But the people I meet are not like the friends I had before. What kind of mistake is it to have the ability to gain a bachelor of arts from a prestigious university – with your ducks all set in line to do so – and then not follow through? My question to whomever might be reading this is – what would you do? Leave, stay, stick it out for longer??
I left home this fall and went off to a pretty well known and renowned college. I had spent my first year at an “average” four year college – you know the type that most everyone gets into as long as they have a pulse and some money. Well, that isn’t quite fair, earning a degree from this “average” college is a thing to be proud of in its particular city, but doesn’t hold much sway elsewhere. Anyhow, I got a 4.0 there my freshman year and started getting the notion that I was kind of “too good to be here”. So, I decided to leave my old comfortable college, with my old high school (most of them junior high…) friends, and my comfortable couch spot at home. I decided to leave my comfortable workout regime, along with my good friend who had challenged me in this area. I decided to leave my hang outs that I had grown so used to – the old movie theater where I had my first date; the bowling alley where I literally went four times a week for an entire summer; etc. Do you see where I’m going here?
I had taken all of this for granted and waved goodbye to it for a name – the name of my current prestigious university. One of the sad things is that I didn’t even realize it until I got here. I was and am miserable here. I have made a lot of friends, but they really aren’t the friends that you can talk to. We do things like party, joke, talk about chicks, play poker. I mean I would never even dream about calling one of these guys up to talk about some troubling issue I have. I couldn’t talk to them about family issues, or open up to them in any way like I could with my old friends – the one’s I’ve known since we were 12. I had a place there – I felt smart and athletic – if they had some school work they were hazy on, I was the guy. If they were getting a football game together – they’d call me up. When one of my friends has some trouble with his mother-in-law – we’d sit down on my porch at 1:00 in the morning and he would smoke about 10 cigarettes until the troubles were more resolved.
I felt like I was needed there and that success was kind of “guaranteed.” I was going to graduate from that average college, I was going to help my friends out, I was going to get the body I want. I mean, I could see where I would be in 3-5 years. I try to tell myself that I’m not homesick here, but I am. I sit up late at night in my dorm room, unable to watch television because of an arranged time to turn it off with my roommate, and I feel an incredible loneliness.
On the other side, I am doing well in the prestigious university. My grades aren’t bad, I’ve met a lot of new people, and I feel more sociable than ever. But I feel like the person I am becoming is the person that this school wants me to be and not the same as the person I’ve been all my life. I unanimous here, like that smart and athletic boy is now just a college boy in a hoodie blending in, hah. Sometimes I feel like this might just be a phase. I remember how miserable high school was in the beginning when you try and find yourself a niche. By your junior year of high school you find out that niches are all bull**** and you finally start liking yourself.
Basically I am trying to explain these thoughts that plague me all day to someone, and I thank you if you have read this far. Something inside of me keeps telling me to leave – go back to your comfortable life, with its safety. Then I fear the regret I would have to leave this prestigious university. My god, how would I explain it to my folks!? What if I’m just adjusting, and I “jump the gun” so to speak on leaving? I mean, I shouldn’t really be miserable here, I have friends and parties, pretty girls to look at. But the people I meet are not like the friends I had before. What kind of mistake is it to have the ability to gain a bachelor of arts from a prestigious university – with your ducks all set in line to do so – and then not follow through? My question to whomever might be reading this is – what would you do? Leave, stay, stick it out for longer??
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. I can't wait to get the hell out of college, and start living.