You might hate your freshman year of college

Let's be honest. Leaving home for presumably the first time in your life sounds next-level exciting and like this is the one thing you have been looking forward to for the last few years, but when you land on campus in that very unfamiliar, unstructured, and sometimes unfriendly atmosphere, the excitement turns into fear, anxiety, uncertainty, sadness, and self-doubt.

Guess what? This is normal. Transition means change. Change, while inducing both positive and negative emotions, when shifting into a drastically new and different environment like college, means...emotional disruption of some degree. The degree of disruption can be the cause of you hating your freshman year experience. 

The transition to college is everything but easy (for most students). The amount of change and need for adaptability is unlike anything you have (likely) experienced up until this point. The ability to know yourself, to rise to new expectations, and to persevere through tough feelings is a test of your strength and character (as they say).

You have had others to provide your support, guidance, reminders, and encouragement...until now.  This blanket of scaffolding that home and high school provides, slips away the minute you land on campus. NOW, you must independently make decisions, remember loads of information, navigate discomfort, practice social emotional skills and executive functioning skills, and learn to "do life" - ALL. On. Your, Own.  How scary. How intimidating. 

Unless you can learn to turn the volume down on how awful freshman feels, and turn the volume UP on curiosity, rational expectations, and focusing in on the big picture, you might hate your freshman experience. 

Here are 3 simple (but difficult) ways to UNHATE your freshman year of college:

1`. Expectations - before you set foot on campus, KNOW what you expect of yourself and of others. Be willing to modify your expectations. If you go into the first week of college thinking you are going to make all kinds of friends and always have someone to eat breakfast with, on the days that you don’t…you feel paralyzed. If you go into your first semester thinking you know how to study, take notes, and pass your tests, the first test your get a D on will feel demoralizing. Being realistic with your self-expectations of your freshman year and first semester experience is the golden key for adapting. Define what resilience means to you. Practice being able to not only adjust expectations of yourself and of others, but to be able to overcome and bounce back from feelings of defeat and doubt.

2. Loneliness - some college campus studies reveal that upwards of 70% of first-year students experience homesickness. Feelings of loneliness in college (and especially freshman year) are inevitable. The solution? Expect to feel alone (often) and know how to pull through the feelings of sadness, disappointment, and shame. Create a "back-pocket" set of "cards" (actions) to pull out when these feelings take over. Pull out the card that says phone a friend, or the one that says go hang out where lots of other kids are located. Once again, being able to be flexible about self-expectations, and adjust your reactions to new emotions and to difficult situations, is the golden key to unlock more self-control of uncontrollable situations and emotions in college.

3. Cognitive and Emotional Flexibility - be ready, willing, and able to FEEL awkward, uncertain, and uncomfortable. Period. If you can master moving through discomfort, your freshman year will be everything except ugly. This is the first time for most college students to feel new feelings, to be faced with the flood of multiple new emotions at once, and to have no idea how to self-direct and self-manage in this experience. We call this emotional regulation. The ability to manage and respond to your emotions in a realistic and healthy manner is a skill that is often not practiced in high school when you have parents and teachers helping support you on your bad days. Emotional regulation is the golden key for optimal mental wellness, maximum executive functioning, and overall positive adjustment to not only freshman year, but to life in general.

These three unusual ways to unhate college are more than tips, tricks, and hacks. These are crucial practices (skills) that college students need to implement daily. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. This means, if you are a strong-minded, resilient student, you will adapt, be willing to feel uncomfortable, and put effort and action into moving yourself through these challenges that make you want to hate your freshman year.
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