My Expectations vs My Reality

Hi, my name is Agustina and I am this year's first-year blogger! Why start a blog of a journal? One of the most obvious reasons to keep a blog or a journal is to express your thoughts. It helps you create an honest space where you can express and track what is happening in your life, revealing your thoughts on certain subjects. As first-year students or university students, we all go through our student lives with certain expectations. Here are some of the expectations I encountered about having to start university. Dorm Room Expectation: My dorm room is cute, functional, and has clean carpet. Oh, and I will make my bed every single day. Reality: My bedroom is small and no matter how hard I try it will always look cluttered and my bed...remains undone. Getting up early Expectation: “I can totally wake up for an 8am lecture, I used to wake up at 7am everyday for high school.” Reality: The snooze button has become my best friend. Somehow, however, I manage to get to all my classes 10 minutes early. Food Choices Expectation: “I will find time to grocery shop at least once a week and will keep a well-balanced diet on my college student budget.” Reality: Instant noodles are delicious. Maybe I should make some instant noodles. Class Difficulty and Workload Expectation: “College classes will be really similar to my AP or IB classes from high school” or at least that’s what my school said they were preparing me for. Reality: I was amazed when on my first class on Monday my professor introduced himself, passed out a syllabus, and then tells the class that we are all free to go just 40 minutes later. The following class, this time I was assigned the longest reading due for the next class EVER. Missing your high school days yet? Truthfully, the first week as a college student has been draining...but in the best way possible. Personally, I never had so much to do and so many people to talk to on a regular day. On my first week, I believe I learned one of the most important lessons of my university career: take it one day at a time. If there is anything I have learned from my hectic week, it is that life is beautifully imperfect and that sometimes when you over nap after a long day (6 hours of lectures)…we are meant to laugh at ourselves. As human beings, we set unrealistic expectations and compare others reality to ours, creating ideas about those around us that are just ridiculous. Everyone has their messes. Everyone has a few college expectations that were not met and that is because everything cannot be organized and neat, and it really shouldn't be. Losing a little of control does not mean you have lost, not having your expectations met on your first week does not mean you should give up. We are human, our lives will never be perfect, but they will be fun.