The College Experience: It Doesn’t Mean the Same Thing for Everyone

Oh, the college experience. Now that mine is officially coming to an end, I have been going through a phase of serious reflection. College is marketed as “the best four years of your life,” and the idea of college as it’s portrayed in movies and on TV seriously perpetuates that. Pristine campuses, with big beautiful options for student housing, and edible dining hall food…not to mention the types of people you will meet. “Making friends is easy!” they say, citing the fact that you obviously picked the same college as your classmates for a reason! What’s not to like about them?

But I have come to the conclusion that college is only like that on the surface level.

My freshman year, that’s how college seemed. Easy, fun, and life seemed simple. I played the role that the movies have taught me to. After insisting throughout all of high school that I wouldn’t, I joined a sorority and immediately had a group of 60 or so “friends.” I went out with them in the evenings (I know, it’s crazy to my current friends to ever imagine me actually going out, but some two years ago, I did!). I did the occasional studying with them in the library and spent hours with them in the chapter room every weekend. 

But that didn’t last for too long. Like hundreds of thousands of other college students, the pandemic had an intense impact on my college education. I only lived in my dorm for one semester before I had to pack up and head home. Looking back on it, that feels like eons ago, when it really only happened a few short years ago.

Around the time that we were sent back to our hometowns for COVID, I was starting to see college a little bit more clearly. Sure, I had had a good time for a few months living in the college fantasy, but I was getting tired. The people around me were all still in awe of the freedom of college life. They wanted to go out every night and stay out until the sun came up, only to sleep through most of the day (and their classes). While, I was starting to feel a bit more out of place and almost a little bit…lame. Grandma-ish if you will. 

Then, before I knew it, I was back home, snuggled up on my family’s couch, struggling through college algebra from the same place I struggled through my high school math classes. Unlike so many others, I didn’t dislike online classes. Hell, I preferred them…and honestly, still do. I don’t think that I reached my peak in productivity or learned as much as I possibly could have during the pandemic, but I did well. Most importantly, I didn’t feel pressured to do the things that “normal” college students do. There was almost no socializing at all, and there was absolutely no partying. My introverted self was thriving. Nobody was asking me to go out with them, because everything was closed and they weren’t going out. When I moved into my first house in the fall of 2020, things were peaceful. Of course, my roommates and I were still trying to navigate the new limitations  that the pandemic had placed on our lives, so things weren’t always happy, but there was no pressure to fit the mold of a “normal” college student.

That same year I became entirely disillusioned by the idea of “sorority life.” I hated the pressure I felt to be just like the other girls I had chosen to surround myself with. I began to realize that my morals and my passions weren’t aligning with the girls that I had been calling my “sisters.” I wanted to remove myself from that lifestyle for almost six months before I finally did. I feared that the real friends I had made in my chapter would disappear when I decided to throw in the towel on the whole “sorority girl” thing, but I was entirely wrong. Instead, my closest friends ended up choosing the same exit path that I had shortly thereafter (and we are still friends to this day!)

Around this time my college experience shape-shifted again, taking another step away from the stereotypical experience. This is when I made the decision to graduate a year early, a decision that came easier than expected. I couldn’t imagine living in my college town for two more years.

I wanted out, and I wanted out as soon as possible.

This is the part where I would explain how I talked to my advisors and they were very helpful and made the entire process a breeze…but that’s so incredibly far from the truth. I had no help. zero. zilch, in navigating the track of an early graduation. I looked to my professors, who helped me the best they could, and for the past year I have sat in waiting for the day that someone would come to me and say, “Sorry Carly, you actually don’t get to graduate early.”

But thankfully, that day has not come. Instead I got an automated email saying I would be allowed to walk across the stage in May. Hallelujah!

Now, with graduation on the horizon, what does my college life look like? I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily boring but I’m sure others might beg to differ. I go to school for a few hours, three days a week. My classes are mostly mundane and easy, aside from one difficult class I need to take to graduate. I work on the weekends. I hang out with a few people, a few times a week, and I see my best friend almost every single day. I help run a student organization that empowers women to find their voices and write. At night, I sit down and call my long distance boyfriend, and we catch up on the things going on in our lives. And, that’s mostly it. Occasionally, my friends and I venture for a “night out,” which mostly consists of us leaving the house for a few hours to socialize over dinner and be back in bed before midnight.

It’s not what everybody expects college to look like, and for a long time I thought that meant I was doing something wrong. 

It’s easy to get sucked into the idea that if your college experience isn’t exactly like pictures in your admission booklet, that’s bad. At first, I believed it too and I hated college because I felt like I was doing it wrong. But ultimately, I realized that college does look different for everybody, and while some find themselves living in the TV version of higher education, there are plenty others that are sitting around thinking, “This is not what I expected.” There is no “right” or “wrong” in this situation — there is just a lot of learning, growing, and realizing what makes you happy, and what makes you really not happy.

With all this being said, my college experience has taught me more than I ever imagined I could learn from it. It taught me more things about myself than I could possibly count. It taught me how to deal with people, something that doesn’t seem entirely hard until you meet some. But these are all lessons that I needed to learn, and that I wouldn’t trade for the world. As a person, I think I’m better off after learning them. I did make good memories, and I made some even greater friends…even if I did lose some along the way.

I dwelled for a long while, wondering what my college years would have looked like under different circumstances and ended up in the same place every time. I realized there is no reason to dwell on how my college experience may have looked if I got into my dream school, or if I had chosen not to go to school at all. There is no answer to those “what if” questions, so it’s best not to ask them at all.

In May, when I toss my cap in the air and walk off the campus where I have spent the last three years, I will leave the frustrations and anger I have had in college, at college, and with the college experience there, in that room. When I leave, I will choose to take with me the lessons and the love.