If I Could Start College Over, This Is What I’d Do Differently

“It’s okay if you don’t know what you want to do yet.”

6 min readAug 1, 2022

If I could use one word to describe my college experience, it would be unpredictable.

If someone were to go back to 2018 and tell me I would be spending a majority of my college career in the biggest global pandemic in a century, I would’ve told you that you’re crazy.

If you had told me my commute to class would be walking from my bed to my desk to open my laptop, I would’ve said you were lying. But despite the fact my (and many others’) experience has been far from normal, I still found myself in a lot of the run-of-the-mill problems that come with the newfound freedom of going to college.

Regardless, it was all worth it because I recently received my two Bachelor’s degrees. Even if it came in the mail two months after the ceremony after I had already forgotten about it.

However, if I could go back and give my past self some advice, this is what I would say.

Stop comparing yourself to what other people are doing or where they’re “at”.

I often found myself getting discouraged at the beginning of my freshman year when I would be sitting alone in the dining hall surrounded by large groups of people that seemingly became best friends overnight. However, I can promise you these large instantaneous friend groups don’t last.

College is like the wild. Every freshman coming into it is afraid to be alone, so they flock together with other groups of people. But as time goes on, you’ll quickly learn the people you ran to right away may not be compatible as friends. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Long story short, building friends takes time and the friendships are more likely to last if they’re made slowly. Don’t rush yourself to be too vulnerable too fast.