(College, more college, and the process)10 weeks ago, my college journey began. Well, it was more like a year ago if you count application season. Actually, maybe it was more like two years ago if you count studying for the ACT. Okay so it was really more like fifteen years ago when my Aunt first asked me where I wanted to go to college. Point being, college always loomed in the distant horizon as some major life event, in which I envisioned myself being super cool, having really pretty hair, and basically having no crucial problems to deal with because I had reached level 1 of self-actualization.
So here I am, having gone through my first quarter of college, realizing that those three odd expectations were kinda, not really true at all. (Granted, that also depends on how you define cool.) Super long introduction aside, September 13th marked my official start of this new adventure. I finished up some last-minute packing, looked around my emptyish room one last time, and headed to DIA. I remember waving goodbye to my parents, surprised at the sudden watering in my eyes as I turned away. I guess this is what bittersweet excitement feels like. After the 2-hour flight, I got off at LAX and then called an Uber to campus. The Uber driver happened to be a middle-aged Korean man, who struck up a really friendly conversation with me on the ride over. Though, I was only half listening because I was watching the Los Angeles scenery unfold outside the window. I watched the palm trees and glitzy shops whiz by with a bit of a childlike fascination. I mean, I never get to see palm trees in Colorado. When I finally got to campus, the driver helped me unload my bags and wished me good luck. The first week (zero week), no one has class, so it was a week full of meeting new people and staying out until 3 A.M with friends that I had just met. On September 22nd, classes started. And after that, everything is pretty much one intense, crazy exciting blur. It would take pages to write of all the experiences that I’ve had over during the quarter, so here’s a snippet of it. I got lucky and had the best two roommates I could have ever asked for and I made friends pretty quickly through being a move-in assistant and through KASA (Korean American Student Association.) I stayed up later than I ever have before. (Technically only 4:30 A.M and I still have yet to pull an all nighter.) I hiked to the Hollywood sign, spent all my money on food and uber, and visited LACMA. I got a job as a receptionist and spent my first paycheck way too fast. Midterm season came and went, just like my level of stress. Lectures were sometimes mind-blowing, but at times very boring. I wrote papers, took tests, and realized that I’m not exempt from the freshman 15. I took a lot of photos and posted a lot of snapchats (Mainly of food, of course.) I walked an average of 10,000 steps a day and got super tired just walking home from class (At UCLA, it's leg day every day.) I joined band. (No surprise there.) I had some amazing TA’s and great class discussions. I missed my parents, my friends, and my car. I missed seeing Pikes Peak and Buddy every morning. Soon, it was Turkey season. Thanksgiving was a blissful blur and then finals season hit me hard and unexpectedly. I took some more tests, wrote some more papers, and celebrated the end of the quarter with a heaping cup of gelato. And just like that, my first quarter was over. Throughout these 10 weeks, I’ve learned a lot about political theory, poetry analysis, and carbohydrates, but on the last day of class, my life science teacher said something that really summed up my feelings throughout quarter. This is a very condensed version, but basically he told us that if we attempt to reach happiness as an end goal, we will never reach it. Rather, happiness is progress. When we strive to reach our goals, that process is what makes us truly happy and satisfied in life. So, unlike my childhood expectations, no, college was not level one of self-actualization. But it’s been a process—a really amazing, enriching, stressful yet happy, process.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
About MeThanks for visiting my blog! My name is Megan, I work in Marketing and I graduated as part of Minerva's class of 2021. Enjoy a collage of reflections, poetry, and late-night thoughts. Archives
October 2023
|